On the Determination of Positions in Polar Exploration

Abstract

HAVING in view the importance of this subject in connection with the forthcoming Antarctic expedition, a brief comment on the results obtained in high latitudes, with which we have been favoured during the last few months, may not be out of place. The publication of the scientific results of the Nansen expedition is now before us, and these, together with a few which (without further explanation perhaps) scarcely merit the employment of this adjective, and which are to be found in the pages of Mr. Borchgrevink's account of the Southern Cross expedition, afford food for reflection, but whether they could be more satisfactorily dealt with by a professional man of science or a professional humorist may be open to question. The first have resulted in a series of deductions and suggestions which will strike thoughtful men as being eminently unpractical, and the latter is responsible for considerable confusion of mind in regard to the geographical positions of the most important points to which the expedition just about to start is instructed to proceed.