In 1875 Lieutenant Weyprecht—an Austrian sailor who had himself led the “Tegetthoff” Arctic expedition—gave an address before a German scientific society in which he complained about the small scientific results which had been obtained by the numerous expeditions which had recently been in the Arctic. Although, he said, nearly every branch of science is deeply interested in the Arctic, practically ho scientific data had been brought back. He laid the blame on two facts; first, that the main objects of the expeditions had been the winning of fame by geographical discovery, and secondly the entire absence of co-ordinated and simultaneous observations. He therefore proposed that there should be concerted international action to send a series of expeditions into the polar regions whose main object would be to take meteorological and magnetic observations for a complete year.

A British Polar Exhibition, under the auspices of the Royal Geographical Society, was held at the Central Hall, Westminster, from July 2 to July 19.