Following the polar circle still farther to 100° of east longitude, and close to the circle, there is another interruption in the unknown. This is the much-disputed Wilkesland. It is by far the largest land-mass in the entire antarctic area. The land, including Victorialand, its better-known eastern border, occupies more than one sixth of the circumference of the globe. It covers more degrees of longitude than the entire spread of the United States. In a territory of this extent, even under the most hopeless spread of snow, would it not be strange if something of value and much of interest were not found? It is not at all probable that the disconnected lines seen by Wilkes are a continuous line of the continent. These are, very likely, off-lying islands which front a great continent. We are led into the conviction that there is a continent here by the very great number and the enormous size of the icebergs which were here encountered. But this conviction without better evidence will not, and ought not to, satisfy explorers. Wilkes made his voyage of exploration in small vessels which were not specially strengthened for ice work. If he was able to approach the coast in ordinary ships, a vessel fitted for ice navigation will certainly be able to get nearer and bring back more definite results.
From Victorialand to Grahamland there is but one spot to interrupt the movement of the great sea of restless ice. This is Peter Island. It was discovered by the Russian explorer, Bellingshausen, in 1821, and it has not been seen since. The Belgica, in her year’s drift, came close to the assigned position, but we saw no indications of land. It would be interesting to know if this island really exists, and if it is not a part of another small archipelago.
Before passing from the known to the possibilities of the unknown, I will answer the business man’s question: “To whom do these lands belong?” It seems to me that the nations seeking to divide China and Africa might turn their ambitions briefly towards the antarctic. Here are millions of square miles which belong to nobody; at least, there are no valid claims filed, except those which accrue from the right of discovery. Victorialand would seem to belong to England, but it is possible for the United States to lay a strong claim by right of extension of territory. Wilkes, the American explorer, was the first to see and to chart the great masses of land of which Victorialand is a part. The work of Ross, though better in quality, is supplementary to that of Wilkes, which gives the United States a priority claim. There is also a small French claim. There is indeed room for a future boundary dispute of the limits and claims of the Americans, English, and French in Wilkesland. The British Government seems to have no doubt on this question, for twelve years ago the Queen issued a grant for Possession Island, making Mr. Albert McCormick Davis, of Montreal, colonial governor of its numerous cities of penguins, and giving him for a stipulated period a monopoly of its guano-beds. Mr. Davis never rose to the dignity of being the first south polar king. He was content with the honours of appointment, and returned his credentials three months after their issue.
Peter and Alexander islands, and one or two islands of the Sandwich group, belong to Russia. The Bellany and Biscoe and Sandwich groups, as well as Enderbyland and Kempland, belong to Great Britain. Grahamland, like Wilkesland, offers many bones of contention. The entire northern coast should belong to the United States. A part of the eastern coast, and a part of the still uncharted western coast, belong to England. Norway has a claim for about two hundred miles on the eastern coast. The recent discoveries of the Belgica give to Belgium the most beautiful and the most useful body of water in the entire antarctic area. In the adjustment of these various claims there is no end of trouble in store.
It is generally held that all these countries belong to nobody—indeed, that they are not worthy of ownership; but this is not true. The issue of a grant for Possession Island is an indication of the sentiment in England; another indication is to be perceived in an incident which happened a few years ago. The Argentine Government, being anxious to secure possession of the South Shetland Islands, aiming probably to control the harbours and the possible fisheries, made some preparation to place there a lighthouse and thus take possession by right of prior occupation. In response to this, according to a rumour said to have been based on official instruction, a British cruiser was ordered to speed, as soon as the Argentine steamer left port, to the South Shetlands and there to receive the Argentinos. The long period which has elapsed since the discovery of everything antarctic weakens the natural claims, and any one who now takes the trouble to occupy any portion of it would undoubtedly become the owner. The man who sits on the southern ice, under the hellish antarctic storms, long enough to make good his deed, deserves all there is under him, even if it proves a Klondike.
I must beg leave to differ with the prevailing opinion, regarding polar exploration, that there is no commercial or material reward commensurate with the expenditure of time and money. In the antarctic there are several prospective industries, and much of the future work has a direct bearing upon commerce. There are seals, penguins, and whales in abundance around the circumpolar area. Every rock which offers an accessible beach is covered with either seals or penguins, and every channel of open water between the pack-ice or around the ice-sheltered lands is alive with whales. Fur-seals were at one time so numerous that a whole fleet of American sealers were engaged in the hunt; but the fur-seals are now nearly extinct. The several varieties of antarctic seals have a coarse coat of single hair which is useless as a fur; but the skin and oil are of considerable value. There is no reason why a profitable fishery could not be prosecuted, like that off the coast of Labrador and Greenland. The penguins are not widely known to commerce, but their countless millions will surely attract enterprise and yield some useful product. Already they are being taken at the Falkland Islands for the oil they possess. We must abandon the hope that right whales, possessing the prized whalebone, exist here in numbers sufficient to warrant a promise of future whaling. Ross reports having seen right whales, but a diligent search since has failed to confirm this report. From the Belgica we saw no whales of this variety, but finback and bottlenose whales were seen in great numbers. These are small whales having no bone of commercial value, and a somewhat inferior quality of oil. But the hunt for a similar variety of whales in Norway has given profitable employment to thousands of men in the past ten years. Whaling and sealing in the antarctic cannot, however, be made to pay the enormous expense of fitting out from Europe and North America for so distant a hunting-ground. To make these industries successful, permanent bases must be established either in the antarctic, on the sub-antarctic islands, or in the southern parts of South America or Australia.
The guano-beds of Possession Island offer an enterprise which seems to promise certain results. The guano is rich in nitrates, and exists in quantities sufficient to keep a fleet of cargo-vessels occupied for years. There are strong possibilities of the existence of hundreds of other islands within the area of the unknown, loaded with a similar or even a greater weight of the fertiliser. Such islands may be found in more accessible places, outside of the pack-ice, off the coast of Grahamland, or among the partly known groups such as the South Shetland, Bouvet, Prince Edward, or Macquarie islands.
The future for fisheries and guano industries has an appearance of reasonable certainty, but this is not true of the possible mineral wealth or of other revenue-bearing material which may be hidden behind the icy gates. Our geological knowledge of this area is still too imperfect to offer even a guess of the probable finds of precious metals or gems. Arguing by analogy, the South Shetlands in general appearance, and what little is known of the geological formation, resemble Tierra del Fuego, and we now know that gold is here found in paying quantities. Since these islands are an extension of the Fuegian lands, is it unreasonable to expect to find gold here? An antarctic Alaska is by no means beyond the future possibilities.
Are there not people or unknown animals in the regions around the south pole? Novelists have pictured this mysterious region since the time of Dalrymple, in 1760, with curious races of people and strange forms of animal life. It is the last unexplored expanse on the globe of sufficient area to offer room for fictitious creations of new worlds, and it will continue to be a special domain for imaginative writers for many years. From the explorations thus far, we have no reason to hope for any startling discoveries of human or other animal life. Borchgrevink, owing to his inexperience and hasty conclusions, mistook ordinary penguin tracks for the footprints of some large and unknown animal. No reliable traces of either large new animals or human beings have been found. The regions are, as homes for adapted people, far superior to the arctic lands, where the Eskimos periodically starve or live in blubbery abundance. If sailors or wild people were cast adrift on the antarctic shores they would not necessarily starve. There is food and fuel, and even clothing, to be had from the seals and penguins everywhere. The life would not be full of comforts, if measured by our standards, but compared to Eskimo existence there is a decided advantage in life-sustaining prospects of the southern pole—not in climate or in the degrees of cold, but in the certainty of food. People then, if they once find a foothold, might easily thrive, but to the present we have found but one doubtful sign. This was reported by Captain Larsen, the Norwegian sealer, in 1893. Larsen found about fifty clay balls, perched on pillars of the same material, on Seymour Island, off the eastern coast of Grahamland. “These,” said Larsen, “had the appearance of having been made by human hand.”