Through the first Antarctic night, 1898-1899

OSGOOD ART COLORTYPE CO., CHI. & N. Y.
An Antarctic Iceberg
A NARRATIVE OF THE VOYAGE OF THE “BELGICA” AMONG NEWLY DISCOVERED LANDS AND OVER AN UNKNOWN SEA ABOUT THE SOUTH POLE
FREDERICK A. COOK, M.D.
SURGEON AND ANTHROPOLOGIST OF THE BELGIAN ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION WITH AN APPENDIX CONTAINING A SUMMARY OF THE SCIENTIFIC RESULTS
Illustrated
WILLIAM HEINEMANN LONDON 1900
Copyright, 1900, by Frederick A. Cook.
Portions of this narrative have appeared in the Century , Scribner’s and McClure’s . Though this material has been much changed and rewritten, my acknowledgments are due to these magazines.
Press of J. J. Little & Co. Astor Place, New York
TO THE LITTLE FAMILY, THE OFFICERS, THE SCIENTIFIC STAFF, AND THE CREW OF THE “BELGICA,” WHOSE FORTUNES AND MISFORTUNES MADE THIS STORY OF THE FIRST HUMAN EXPERIENCE THROUGHOUT A SOUTH POLAR YEAR; TO THESE MEN, WHOSE CLOSE COMPANIONSHIP AND STURDY GOOD-FELLOWSHIP MADE LIFE ENDURABLE DURING THE STORMS, THE DARKNESS, AND THE MONOTONY OF THE ANTARCTIC, THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED.
For three hundred years explorers have been active in pushing aside the realms of the unknown towards the north pole; but the equally interesting south pole has, during all this time, been almost wholly neglected. There have been expeditions to the far south, but compared to arctic ventures they have been so few and their work within the polar circle has been so little that the results have been largely forgotten. It is not because valuable results have not been obtained in the antarctic, but because the popular interest in the arctic has completely overshadowed the reports of the antipodes. The search for the North-west and the North-east passages, which commerce demanded to reach the trade of the Orient during the seventeenth and the early part of the eighteenth centuries, fixed the public eye persistently northward. This extended effort to find an easy path to the wealth of Asia was fruitless, but it was followed by a whale fishery, a sealing industry, and a fur trade, which has proven a priceless boon to mankind. As a result of these two periods of trade exploration, we have now entered upon a third stage, a period of scientific research which will not, and should not, end until the entire area is outlined in the growing annals of exact knowledge.