AT THE NORTH POLE

Photograph taken at the “Top of the World.”

“FARTHEST SOUTH”

After Ross came various minor expeditions contributing to the knowledge of the Antarctic regions, and in the 1890’s began a renaissance of Antarctic interest and explo­ra­tion. In 1892, 1893, 1894 Scottish, German, and Norwegian whalers reconnoitered the Antarctic seas of Ross and Weddell in search of new whaling grounds, and in 1894 the first landing was made upon the Antarctic continent by some members of Bull’s Norwegian crew; in 1895 Newmayer introduced in the sixth Geographical Congress in London a resolution upon the importance of Antarctic explo­ra­tion; and in the years following there was an international attack upon the problem by Belgium, Great Britain, Germany, Scotland, Sweden, and France. In 1898, for the first time in the history of Antarctic explo­ra­tion, an expedition (the Belgian under Commander de Gerlache), passed a winter within the Antarctic Circle beset in the ice; and a year later, in 1899, a British expedition under Borchgrevink passed a winter on the Antarctic continent itself, and made at Cape Adare, in Ross Sea, the first attempt at land explo­ra­tion.

REAR ADMIRAL ROBERT E. PEARY

In 1901–1902 a German expedition under Drygalski determined a new part of the coast of the Antarctic continent south of Africa, and three others, under Bruce of Scotland, Nordenskjöld of Sweden, and Charcot of France, made valuable discoveries in Weddell Sea, and the regions southeast, south, and southwest of Cape Horn. In 1901–1903 Scott of Great Britain, selecting the Ross Sea region discovered by Ross sixty years before as his base, effected the first serious land explo­ra­tion of the Antarctic continent. In a magnificent sledge journey he covered three hundred and eighty miles due south, reaching a point within four hundred and thirty-seven miles of the South Pole. Following Scott, his lieutenant, Shackleton, in 1908–09, using essentially the same base and route as Scott, made an even more brilliant journey, and reached a point within ninety-seven miles of the Pole, January 9, 1909. At that time this was the “farthest south” record.

Reproduced from “The Heart of the Antarctic,” by Sir Ernest H. Shackleton. Copyright, J. B. Lippincott Co.