Through the first Antarctic night, 1898-1899

by Frederick Albert Cook

FREDERICK A. COOK, M. D.

Sledge-sailing.

The heterogeneous branches of human knowledge are so intimately interwoven that it is hard to conceive an improvement in one which does not conduce to the advantage of others. The modes of association which exist between the numerous objects of mental and physical research are like the membranes which embrace the humours of the eye, so minute and transparent that, while they give union and solidity to the whole, they themselves remain unperceived or wholly invisible. The general advancement in the knowledge of our globe, which follows the work of polar exploration, is not at first perceived. The collective results are rearranged and interwoven with the other threads which go to make up the fabric of the various branches of natural science. Around the two poles of the earth, and particularly around the south pole, there are extensive unknown regions. In these regions are hidden the finishing filaments of much exact knowledge. To seek these is the true object of polar exploration.

Efforts at clearing up the mysteries of the arctic will now for a time give place to projects for antarctic research. The disputed questions, bearing upon the value of such enterprises, have been answered in the affirmative by the Belgian, the British, and the German governments. Each of these governments has contributed large funds, not to find the south pole, but to gather the ends of the threads of science which are there lost in white obscurity.

The possibilities of exploration in the far south are many, and properly to understand them we must first review the regions actually known. Perhaps it is not correct to say that anything antarctic is actually known. Almost the entire space beyond the polar circle, with the exception of a few dotted lines, is a blank upon our charts. Even the sub-antarctic lands, like Tierra del Fuego, Kerguelen, and the Auckland Islands, are for scientific purposes unknown. Of the truly antarctic lands the first in time of discovery and in value is the always accessible land-mass south of the South Shetland Islands, which is erroneously charted Grahamland.

This is a large mass of land which is labelled on the various charts with different names, and is parcelled out to suit the nationality of the chart-makers. No navigator will be able to recognise the landmarks of Grahamland from any modern chart. This was the experience of the Belgica. The American sealer, Palmer, first saw the northern outline of this land. The British sealer, Biscoe, saw a part of the western border of the same land. But neither Palmer nor Biscoe has given sufficient information to make a chart. The British explorer, James Ross, and the French explorer, d’Urville, touched along the north-eastern limits, and recently the Norwegian sealer, Larsen, has traced a part of the eastern limits. From the work of later explorers, and the guesses of the early sealers, the present map is constructed. But since the Belgica sailed over two hundred miles of this region where high land was placed, and since she sailed over the regions where the Biscoe Islands are placed, it is evident that even this, which is the best known of the antarctic lands, needs a general re-discovery.

The actual existence of a land, corresponding to what is charted as Grahamland, is a matter of considerable doubt. On the map it extends from the sixty-ninth parallel of latitude northward four hundred miles. Alexander I. Land, which makes the southern termination of this, is a group of islands, and we saw no land eastward. The character of the land which may or may not exist between this and the newly discovered Belgica Strait is questionable. It may be a continuous land, but, from the large indentations which we saw, it is quite as likely to be an archipelago. The possibilities of future exploration in this region are very great. The country is easy of access, and has an abundance of bays and channels, which will afford shelter to exploring vessels. It offers scientific and commercial prospects promised by no other new polar region.

Following the polar circle from Grahamland eastward, the next land is Enderbyland. Ten degrees farther another line is put down and named Kempland. Enderbyland was reported by Captain Biscoe in 1831. The pack-ice was so closely set around the land that Biscoe was not able to debark or approach within twenty-five miles. So far as we know, he saw but one headland to distinguish the land from an iceberg.

Kempland was also inaccessible, and Captain Kemp, the British sealer who discovered it, gave on his return only a verbal report. Captain Morrell, an American sealer, but a few years previous sailed over an ice-strewn sea about fifty miles south of both Enderbyland and Kempland without seeing anything resembling land. This makes it extremely probable that neither Enderbyland nor Kempland is a large mass connected with any other land. The geographical problems which seem to be indicated here are: Is this an archipelago, like the Palmer Archipelago, fronting a higher and more continuous country or continent? Or is it an isolated group of islands? An expedition devoted to this object and this only would add certain and unique records to geographic and all other sciences.