Page:A Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Regions Vol 1.djvu/23

Rh correspondence with, and on a plan concerted with the commander of, such expedition.

"As regards the second branch of the subject referred to them, viz., the proposal of an antarctic voyage of magnetic research, they are of opinion, as already generally expressed, that such a voyage would be, in the present state of the subject, productive of results of the highest importance and value; and they ground this opinion on the following reasons:—

"1st. That great and notorious deficiencies exist in our knowledge of the course of the variation lines generally, but especially in the antarctic seas, and that the true position of the southern magnetic pole or poles can scarcely even be conjectured with any probability from the data already known.

"2ndly. That our knowledge of the dip throughout those regions, and the whole southern hemisphere, is even yet more defective, and that even such observations of this element as could be procured at sea, still more by landing on ice, &c., would have especial value.

"3rdly. That the intensity lines in those regions rest on observations far too few to justify any sure reliance on their courses over a large part of their extent, and over the rest are altogether conjectural. Nevertheless, that there is good reason to believe in the existence and accessibility of two points of maximum intensity in the southern as in the