A MEMBER of the recent Belgian Antarctic expedition tells in a late French journal of the results of this latest exploration around the south pole. Attempts to gain a definite knowledge of the south polar regions have usually met with little success, owing to the fact that the warm ocean currents, such as the gulf stream and the Japanese current, do not penetrate this zone to any appreciable extent. This accounts for the fact that explorers have not been able to penetrate as far into the southern ocean as they have in the northern. Only floating icebergs or mountains whose snow-line reaches down to the sea are found in latitude south which would correspond with the latitudes of Hammerfest, Tromso, Reykjavik, and Archangel in the north, all of which are habitable cities. The geography of the south polar region, M. de Garlache says, has been based largely upon reports of whalers and sealers, and these have been very inaccurate. The Belgian expedition was continually sailing over what had been supposed to be land, and finding land where only open sea was designated on the maps. M. de Garlache's article concludes with the following description of regions hitherto unexplored :— "The panorama unfolded to our eyes, and never contemplated by man before, was of gloomy grandeur. Half way up the black, gray, or red cliffs, vertical and with clearly defined clefts, floated clouds; at their feet was the ice, brilliantly white, with blue cracks at the sea-level. Here and there floated icebergs eaten away by the waves; some had vast caves, whose roofs were of dazzling azure. We often saw sunsets of unspeakable magnificence. The only things needed to complete our happiness were volcanoes. "The water was peopled with cetacea, *balneop-9tera, and megoptera*. On the floating ice seals assembled. On the land we found rookeries or colonies of penguins, which did not disperse at our approach; they had never seen men before. These rookeries were often on beds of guano that looked like soil, but underneath was solid rock. Other birds innumerable nested or perched on the cliffs, sea-swallows, petrels, cape-pigeons, etc. It is difficult to give an idea of the desolation of the Antarctic regions. Take the highest Alps, suppose an unheard-of deluge that raises the water level to the limit of eternal snow, regard the summits that rise above it, and you will get an idea of Brabant Island, of Antwerp Island, of Danco Land, etc. There the snow line is at the sea-level, and nevertheless we are only at 64° or 65° South latitude."