CHAPTER 16

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 degrees S., longitude 41

degrees 20’ W. In the event of his not discovering these lands,

he designed, should the season prove favourable, to push on

toward 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 neighborhood 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 degrees 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 vessel 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

degrees 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 degrees

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 degrees 40’ he met with a strong current setting

to the southward. In December, when the vessels were in latitude

67 degrees 31’, longitude 142 degrees 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 degrees 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 degrees 10’, longitude 106 degrees

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 impassible, and

extending about a mile to the southward. Behind it the frozen

surface was comparatively smooth for some distance, until

terminated in the extreme background 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

degrees 10’, but we are astonished that he did attain that point

on the meridian of 106 degrees 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 dispatched by

Alexander of Russia for the purpose of circumnavigating the

globe. In endeavouring to get south, they made no farther than 59

degrees 58’, in longitude 70 degrees 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 Kreutzenstern 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 degrees

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 11th 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 degrees 52’ S., longitude 118

degrees 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 degrees 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 degrees 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 degrees 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 further

progress to the westward, 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 degrees 30’ S., longitude 47

degrees 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 further 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 degrees 15’ longitude 69 degrees 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

degrees 30’ E. to 69 degrees 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 indifference. It was

within these limits that Weddel 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.