Page:Polar Exploration - Bruce - 1911.djvu/222

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218
POLAR EXPLORATION

incomplete until some munificent millionaire resolves similarly to equip and endow a ship to complete the work by carrying out a systematic magnetic survey of the seas of the Arctic and Antarctic Regions.

But although so little has been done with regard to magnetism in polar seas, yet a very considerable amount has been done in polar lands. All the recent Antarctic expeditions carried out magnetic observations on land. The station set up by the Scottish Expedition in the South Orkneys has now conducted observations there continuously during the last eight years, thanks to the energy of Mr. W. G. Davis and the Government of the Argentine Republic. It is of interest to note that Sir James Ross, serving under his uncle Sir John Ross, was the first to take magnetic observations at the North Magnetic Pole, in 1831, and that Mr. D. Mawson, serving under Sir Ernest Shackleton, was the first to take magnetic observations at the South Magnetic Pole, in 1909. Though it is a matter of satisfaction to have the British flag hoisted in both magnetic poles of the globe, the intrinsic value of the observations taken there is not very great from a scientific standpoint, as Mawson himself points out, since they are only single isolated observations, but the good series of observations that Mawson has taken in the