University of Virginia Library

16. CHAPTER XVI.

It had been Captain Guy's original intention, after
satisfying himself about the Auroras, to proceed through
the Strait of Magellan, and up along the western coast
of Patagonia; but information received at Tristan d'Acunha
induced him to steer to the southward, in the hope of
falling in with some small islands said to lie about the
parallel of 60 ° S., longitude 41 ° 20′ W. In the event
of his not discovering these lands, he designed, should
the season prove favourable, to push on towards the
pole. Accordingly, on the twelfth of December, we
made sail in that direction. On the eighteenth we
found ourselves about the station indicated by Glass,
and cruised for three days in that neighbourhood without
finding any traces of the islands he had mentioned. On
the twenty-first, the weather being unusually pleasant,
we again made sail to the southward, with the resolution
of penetrating in that course as far as possible.
Before entering upon this portion of my narrative, it may
be as well, for the information of those readers who have
paid little attention to the progress of discovery in these
regions, to give some brief account of the very few attempts
at reaching the southern pole which have hitherto
been made.

That of Captain Cook was the first of which we have
any distinct account. In 1772 he sailed to the south in
the Resolution, accompanied by Lieutenant Furneaux in
the Adventure. In December he found himself as far
as the fifty-eighth parallel of south latitude, and in longitude

26 ° 57′ E. Here he met with narrow fields of
ice, about eight or ten inches thick, and running northwest
and southeast. This ice was in large cakes, and
usually it was packed so closely that the vessels had
great difficulty in forcing a passage. At this period
Captain Cook supposed, from the vast number of birds
to be seen, and from other indications, that he was in
the near vicinity of land. He kept on to the southward,
the weather being exceedingly cold, until he reached the
sixty-fourth parallel, in longitude 38 ° 14′ E. Here he
had mild weather, with gentle breezes, for five days, the
thermometer being at thirty-six. In January, 1773, the
vessels crossed the Antarctic circle, but did not succeed
in penetrating much farther; for, upon reaching latitude
67 ° 15′, they found all farther progress impeded by an
immense body of ice, extending all along the southern
horizon as far as the eye could reach. This ice was of
every variety—and some large floes of it, miles in extent,
formed a compact mass, rising eighteen or twenty
feet above the water. It being late in the season, and
no hope entertained of rounding these obstructions,
Captain Cook now reluctantly turned to the northward.

In the November following he renewed his search in
the Antarctic. In latitude 59 ° 40′ he met with a strong
current setting to the southward. In December, when
the vessels were in latitude 67 ° 31′, longitude 142 °
54′ W., the cold was excessive, with heavy gales and
fog. Here also birds were abundant; the albatross, the
penguin, and the peterel especially. In latitude 70 °
23′ some large islands of ice were encountered, and
shortly afterward, the clouds to the southward were observed
to be of a snowy whiteness, indicating the vicinity
of field ice. In latitude 71 ° 10′, longitude 106 ° 54′
W., the navigators were stopped, as before, by an immense
frozen expanse, which filled the whole area of the
southern horizon. The northern edge of this expanse
was ragged and broken, so firmly wedged together as to
be utterly impassable, and extending about a mile to the
southward. Behind it the frozen surface was comparatively
smooth for some distance, until terminated in the

extreme back-ground by gigantic ranges of ice mountains,
the one towering above the other. Captain Cook
concluded that this vast field reached the southern
pole or was joined to a continent. Mr. J. N. Reynolds,
whose great exertions and perseverance have at length
succeeded in getting set on foot a national expedition,
partly for the purpose of exploring these regions, thus
speaks of the attempt of the Resolution. “We are not
surprised that Captain Cook was unable to go beyond
71 ° 10′, but we are astonished that he did attain that
point on the meridian of 106 ° 54′ west longitude. Palmer's
Land lies south of the Shetland, latitude sixty-four
degrees, and tends to the southward and westward farther
than any navigator has yet penetrated. Cook was
standing for this land when his progress was arrested
by the ice; which, we apprehend, must always be the
case in that point, and so early in the season as the sixth
of January—and we should not be surprised if a portion
of the icy mountains described was attached to the main
body of Palmer's Land, or to some other portions of land
lying farther to the southward and westward.”

In 1803, Captains Kreutzenstern and Lisiausky were
despatched by Alexander of Russia for the purpose of
circumnavigating the globe. In endeavouring to get
south, they made no farther than 59 ° 58′, in longitude 70 °
15′ W. They here met with strong currents setting eastwardly.
Whales were abundant, but they saw no ice.
In regard to this voyage, Mr. Reynolds observes that, if
Krcutzenstern had arrived where he did earlier in the
season, he must have encountered ice—it was March
when he reached the latitude specified. The winds prevailing,
as they do, from the southward and westward,
had carried the floes, aided by currents, into that icy region
bounded on the north by Georgia, east by Sandwich
Land and the South Orkneys, and west by the South
Shetland Islands.

In 1822, Captain James Weddell, of the British navy,
with two very small vessels, penetrated farther to the
south than any previous navigator, and this too, without
encountering extraordinary difficulties. He states that

although he was frequently hemmed in by ice before
reaching the seventy-second parallel, yet, upon attaining
it, not a particle was to be discovered, and that, upon arriving
at the latitude of 74 ° 15′, no fields, and only three
islands of ice were visible. It is somewhat remarkable
that, although vast flocks of birds were seen, and other
usual indications of land, and although, south of the
Shetlands, unknown coasts were observed from the
masthead tending southwardly, Weddell discourages the
idea of land existing in the polar regions of the south.

On the eleventh of January, 1823, Captain Benjamin
Morrell, of the American schooner Wasp, sailed from
Kerguelen's Land with a view of penetrating as far south
as possible. On the first of February he found himself
in latitude 64 ° 52′ S., longitude 118 ° 27′ E. The following
passage is extracted from his journal of that
date. “The wind soon freshened to an eleven-knot
breeze, and we embraced this opportunity of making to
the west; being however convinced that the farther we
went south beyond latitude sixty-four degrees the less ice
was to be apprehended, we steered a little to the southward,
until we crossed the Antarctic circle, and were in
latitude 69 ° 15′ E. In this latitude there was no field
ice, and very few ice islands in sight.”

Under the date of March fourteenth I find also this
entry. “The sea was now entirely free of field ice,
and there were not more than a dozen ice islands in
sight. At the same time the temperature of the air and
water was at least thirteen degrees higher (more mild)
than we had ever found it between the parallels of sixty
and sixty-two south. We were now in latitude 70 ° 14′
S., and the temperature of the air was forty-seven, and
that of the water forty-four. In this situation I found
the variation to be 14 ° 27′ easterly, per azimuth...
I have several times passed within the Antarctic circle
on different meridians, and have uniformly found the
temperature, both of the air and the water, to become
more and more mild the farther I advanced beyond the
sixty-fifth degree of south latitude, and that the variation
decreases in the same proportion. While north of this

latitude, say between sixty and sixty-five south, we frequently
had great difficulty in finding a passage for the
vessel between the immense and almost innumerable
ice islands, some of which were from one to two miles
in circumference, and more than five hundred feet above
the surface of the water.”

Being nearly destitute of fuel and water, and without
proper instruments, it being also late in the season, Captain
Morrell was now obliged to put back, without attempting
any farther progress to the southward, although
an entirely open sea lay before him. He expresses the
opinion that, had not these overruling considerations
obliged him to retreat, he could have penetrated, if not
to the pole itself, at least to the eighty-fifth parallel. I
have given his ideas respecting these matters somewhat
at length, that the reader may have an opportunity of
seeing how far they were borne out by my own subsequent
experience.

In 1831, Captain Briscoe, in the employ of the Messieurs
Enderby, whale-ship owners of London, sailed in the
brig Lively for the South Seas, accompanied by the cutter
Tula. On the twenty-eighth of February, being in
latitude 66 ° 30′ S., longitude 47 ° 31′ E., he descried
land, and “clearly discovered through the snow the black
peaks of a range of mountains running E. S. E.” He
remained in this neighbourhood during the whole of the
following month, but was unable to approach the coast
nearer than within ten leagues, owing to the boisterous
state of the weather. Finding it impossible to make
farther discovery during this season, he returned northward
to winter in Van Diemen's Land.

In the beginning of 1832 he again proceeded southwardly,
and on the fourth of February land was seen
to the southeast in latitude 67 ° 15′, longitude 69 ° 29′ W.
This was soon found to be an island near the headland
of the country he had first discovered. On the twenty-first
of the month he succeeded in landing on the latter,
and took possession of it in the name of William IV.,
calling it Adelaide's Island, in honour of the English
queen. These particulars being made known to the

Royal Geographical Society of London, the conclusion
was drawn by that body “that there is a continuous
tract of land extending from 47 ° 30′ E. to 69 ° 29′ W.
longitude, running the parallel of from sixty-six to sixty-seven
degrees south latitude.” In respect to this conclusion
Mr. Reynolds observes, “In the correctness of
it we by no means concur; nor do the discoveries of
Briscoe warrant any such inference. It was within
these limits that Weddell proceeded south on a meridian
to the east of Georgia, Sandwich Land, and the South
Orkney and Shetland Islands.” My own experience
will be found to testify most directly to the falsity of the
conclusion arrived at by the society.

These are the principal attempts which have been
made at penetrating to a high southern latitude, and it
will now be seen that there remained, previous to the
voyage of the Jane, nearly three hundred degrees of longitude
in which the Antarctic circle had not been crossed
at all. Of course a wide field lay before us for discovery,
and it was with feelings of most intense interest
that I heard Captain Guy express his resolution of pushing
boldly to the southward.