Cook’s Discoveries in the Antarctic Ocean.—Bellinghausen.—Weddell.—Biscoe.—Balleny.—Dumont d’Urville.—Wilkes.—Sir James Ross crosses the Antarctic Circle on New Year’s Day, 1841.—Discovers Victoria Land.—Dangerous Landing on Franklin Island.—An Eruption of Mount Erebus.—The Great Ice Barrier.—Providential Escape.—Dreadful Gale.—Collision.—Hazardous Passage between two Icebergs.—Termination of the Voyage.
Before Cook, no navigator had left Europe with the clear design of penetrating into the Antarctic regions. Dirk Gheritz indeed had been driven by a furious storm far to the south of Cape Horn, and became the involuntary discoverer of the New Shetland Islands in 1600; but his voyage was soon forgotten, and in an age when the love of gold or the desire of conquest were the sole promoters of maritime enterprise, no mariner felt inclined to follow on his track, and to plunge into a sea where most probably he would find nothing but ice-fields and icebergs to reward his efforts. Nearly two centuries later a more scientific age directed its attention to the unknown regions of the distant south, and Cook sailed forth to probe the secrets of the Antarctic Seas. This dangerous task he executed with an intrepidity unparalleled in the annals of navigation. Beyond 60° of southern latitude, he cruised over a space of more than 100° of longitude, and on January 30, 1774, penetrated as far as 71° of southern latitude, where he was stopped by impenetrable masses of ice. Such were the difficulties encountered from dense fogs, snow-storms, intense cold, and every thing that can render navigation dangerous, that in his opinion the lands situated to the southward of his discoveries must forever remain unknown.
Again for many a year no one attempted to enter a field where the most celebrated of modern mariners had found but a few desert islands (South Georgia, Sandwich’s Land, Southern Thule) until Smith’s casual rediscovery of New South Shetland in 1819 once more turned the current of maritime exploration to the Antarctic Seas.
Soon afterwards a Russian expedition under Lazareff and Bellinghausen discovered (January, 1821), in 69° 3´ S. lat., the islands Paul the First and Alexander, the most southern lands that had ever been visited by man.
The year after Captain Weddell, a sealer, penetrated into the icy ocean as far as 74° 15´ S. lat., 3° nearer to the pole than had been attained by Cook. The sea lay invitingly open, but as the season was far advanced, and Weddell apprehended the dangers of the return voyage, he steered again to the north.
In 1831 Biscoe discovered Enderby Land, and soon afterwards Graham’s Land, to which the gratitude of geographers has since given the discoverer’s name. In 1839 Balleny revealed the existence of the group of islands called after him, and of Sabrina Land (69° S. lat.). About the same time three considerable expeditions, fitted out by the governments of France, the United States, and England, made their appearance in the Antarctic Seas.
Dumont d’Urville discovered Terre Louis Philippe (63° 31´ S. lat.) in February, 1838, and Terre Adélie (66° 67´ S. lat.) on January 21, 1840. Almost on the same day, Wilkes, the commander of the United States Exploring Expedition, reached an ice-bound coast, which he followed for a length of 1500 miles, and which has been called Wilkes’s Land, to commemorate the discoverer’s name.
But of all the explorers of the southern frozen ocean, the palm unquestionably belongs to Sir James Ross who penetrated farther towards the pole than any other navigator before or after, and made the only discoveries of extensive land within the area bounded by the Antarctic Circle.
On New Year’s Day, 1841, the “Erebus,” Captain James Clark Ross, and the “Terror,” commanded by Francis Crozier, who died with Franklin in the Arctic Sea, crossed the Antarctic Circle, and after sustaining many severe shocks in breaking through the pack-ice, emerged on January 9 into a clear sea of great extent; but the fog and snow-showers were so thick that the navigators could seldom see more than half a mile before them. On the following day the fog began to disperse, and on the 11th, Victoria Land, rising in lofty peaks entirely covered with perennial snow, was seen at a distance of more than one hundred miles. On steering towards Mount Sabine, the highest mountain of the range, new chains of hills were seen extending to the right and left. After sailing for a few days to the south along the ice-bound coast, a gale forced the ships to stand out to sea; but on the morning of January 15, the weather becoming beautifully clear, allowed a full view of a magnificent chain of mountains stretching far away to the southward. Ross was most anxious to find a harbor in which to secure the ships, but every indentation of the coast was found filled with snow drifted from the mountains, and forming a mass of ice several hundred feet thick. It was thus impossible to enter any of the valleys or breaks in the coast where harbors in other lands usually occur. Yet these inhospitable shores (72° 73´ S. lat.) are situated but one or two degrees nearer to the pole than Hammerfest, the seat of an active commerce on the Norwegian coast.
Favored by northerly winds and an open sea, the ships reached on January 22 a higher southern latitude (74° 20´ S.) than that which had been attained by Weddell. Pursuing their way to the southward along the edge of the pack-ice, which now compelled them to keep at a considerable distance from the coast, they came on the 27th within two or three miles of a small island connected by a vast ice-field with the extreme point of the mainland. Eager to set his foot on the most southerly soil (76° 8´ S.) he had as yet discovered, Ross left the “Erebus,” accompanied by several officers, and, followed by Crozier and a party from the “Terror,” pulled towards the shore. A high southerly swell broke so heavily against the cliffs and on the only piece of beach which they could see as they rowed from one end of the island to the other, as almost to forbid their landing.