The initial impetus for this golden era of chasing the South Pole came with a lecture given to the Royal Geographical Society by Professor John Murray, in 1893. Murray claimed that a new Antarctica expedition was necessary now, before any further advances in exploration technology were made, so that decades later humankind would still be singing the praises of the brave men who battled frostbite and death to know more about one of the most frozen, barren, practically worthless pieces of land, for Science.