He not only promoted explorations, but also actively collected funds to realize them, and gave an account of the receipts and expenditures in several issues of PGM. In 1865 Otto Volger of the FDH (Freies Deutsches Hochstift für Wissenschaft, Künste und allgemeine Bildung, founded in 1859) organised the 'Allgemeine Deutsche Versammlung von Freunden der Erdkunde' (General German Assembly of Friends of Geography). During this two-day meeting G. Neumayer stressed the fact that Germany needed a German maritime institute to be independent of other nations. One of the programmed issues to be discussed was the issue of guidelines for the use of a homogeneous meteorological logbook for the German merchant navy. In later years the maps in PGM made much use of the data thus gathered. Petermann jealously reported on the marine surveys in Britain and America, which were realized with governmental support, and he dearly wished such was possible in other nations, especially Germany. Furthermore, he pointed out that Germany had much to win by exploring the Arctic region, especially the Northeast Passage, since the English and Americans were concentrating on the Northwest Passage. Though he even tried to get Bismarck involved in an Arctic exploration project, it was shelved for some time because of the Austro Prussian war and the consequent expansion of the Prussian realm. In PGM that same year he again turned to the FDH for support. In 1868 Petermann roused so much support for his idea in the German public that his Arctic expedition actually took place.