Page:Physical Geography of the Sea and its Meteorology.djvu/494

468 permit such a large portion of its surface any longer to remain unexplored. For the last 200 years the Arctic Ocean has been a theatre for exploration; but as for the antarctic, no expedition, has attempted to make any persistent exploration, or even to winter there.

879. Former-expeditions.—England through Cook and Ross; Russia through Billingshausen; France through D'Urville; and the United States through Wilkes, have sent expeditions to the South Sea. They sighted and sailed along the icy barrier, but none of them spent the winter or essayed to travel across and look beyond the first impediment. The expeditions which have been sent to explore unknown seas have contributed largely to the stock of human knowledge, and they have added renown to nations, lustre to diadems. Navies are not all for war. Peace has its conquests, science its glories; and no navy can boast of brighter chaplets than those which have been gathered in the fields of geographical exploration and physical research.

880. An appeal for others.—The great nations of the earth, have all, with more or less spirit, undertaken to investigate certain phenomena touching the sea, and, to make the plan more effectual, they have agreed to observe according to a prescribed formula. The observations thus made have brought to light most of the facts and circumstances which indicate the existence within the antarctic circle of a mild climate mild by comparison. The observations which have led to this conclusion were made by fellow-labourers under all flags. It is hoped that this circumstance may vindicate, in the eyes of all, the propriety of an appeal in this place for antarctic exploration, and plead for it favourable consideration among all nations.

CHAPTER XXII. § 881-895.—THE ACTINOMETRY OF THE SEA.

881. A new field.'—One of the columns in the man-of-war log of the Brussels Conference calls for the temperature of the water below as well as at the surface of the sea. Only a few entries have been made in this column; but these, as far as they go, seem to indicate that the warmest water, especially in tropical