Whereas nothing can redound more to the honour of this nation as a maritime power, to the dignity of the crown of Great Britain, and to the advancement of the trade and navigation thereof than to make discoveries of countries hitherto unknown; and whereas there is reason to believe that lands and islands of great extent, hitherto unvisited by any European Power may be found, His Majesty, conceiving no conjuncture so proper for an enterprise of this nature as a time of profound peace, which his kingdoms at present happily enjoy, has thought fit that it should now be undertaken.
In this spirit our Government resolved to despatch an expedition with the object of deciding the question of the existence of a great southern continent such as had long been delineated on maps of the world. Two vessels built at Whitby, the Resolution (462 tons) and Adventure (336 tons) were selected, and carefully fitted out at Woolwich and Deptford with great store of antiscorbutics. Captain Cook received his appointment on November 28th, 1771, with Captain Furneaux as his second, on board the Adventure. Cook had with him two of the Lieutenants who were in his first voyage, Clerke and Pickersgill. Another Lieutenant, James Burney, was the future Admiral and author of Voyages to the South Sea[184]. One of the midshipmen, Vancouver, was the future explorer and surveyor of the north-west coast of America. Johann Reinhold Forster and his son were appointed as naturalists, and the Board of Longitude sent Mr Wales to make astronomical observations. The Board also supplied four chronometers, three by Arnold, and one by Kendall on Harrison’s principle[185]. This was the first British Antarctic Expedition.
On November 22nd, 1772, the expedition left the Cape with the object of examining the edge of the ice between that meridian and that of New Zealand. The course was south, the two vessels keeping company, and after some very severe weather the first iceberg was sighted on the 10th December in Lat. 50° 20′ 3″ and 2° east of the Cape. On the 14th, after passing many icebergs, the edge of the pack ice was reached. The 17th January, 1773, was a memorable day, for in the forenoon the Antarctic Circle was crossed for the first time in the history of civilised man, in 39° 35′ E. The latitude at noon was 66° 36′ 30″ S., and in the evening 30 icebergs were in sight, and much sailing ice. Captain Cook perseveringly continued to examine the edge of the ice for many days, until on March 26th, 1773, after being 122 days at sea and sailing over 3660 leagues, but never once sighting land, Dusky Bay in New Zealand was reached.
Tahiti and other islands were then visited, and on November 26th, 1773, the Resolution left New Zealand to resume her Antarctic work. On December 14th she was among icebergs and loose ice in 64° 55′ S. and 163° 20′ W. Captain Cook continued his course to the south and on the 20th December crossed the Antarctic Circle for the second time, surrounded by icebergs and loose pack, with very thick weather. On the 26th the sea was dotted with more than 300 bergs. A closely-packed mass of ice, extending east and west as far as could be seen, was reached on the 30th January, 1774. Captain Cook counted 97 ice hills within the pack, many of them very large, and looking like a ridge of mountains rising one above another until they were lost in the clouds. Cook adds that a mile within the pack there was solid ice in one continuous compact body, rather low and flat, but seeming to increase in height as it was traced to the south, in which direction it extended beyond their sight. The latitude was 71° 10′ S., longitude 106° 54′ W.
Cook did not believe that it would have been impossible to force a way through this pack, but he thought that it would not be justifiable to take a ship like the Resolution into such danger. He therefore shaped a northern course from this point, arriving at Easter Island on the 11th March, 1774.
After making numerous important discoveries during the rest of the year 1774, the great navigator left New Zealand on November 10th and the Resolution sailed across the South Pacific, making for Cape Horn. On the 19th of December they anchored in a bay on the south-west coast of Tierra del Fuego, called Christmas Sound. On the 28th they resumed their voyage, rounded Cape Horn, passed through the Strait of Le Maire, and sailed along the north coast of Staten Island, of which Cook wrote an interesting account. On the 15th January, 1775, land was sighted in latitude 54°, consisting of some small islands to which the name of South Georgia was given. On the 31st another discovery was made, which received the name of Sandwich Land. The Cape was reached on March 21st. The expedition arrived at Portsmouth in July, 1775.
Captain Cook had made the circuit of the southern ocean in a high latitude, and had entirely swept away the vast and imaginary Terra Australis of the map-makers. He was, however, of opinion that there was continental land of great extent nearer the pole, and that he had seen part of it when he was at his extreme south. He was thus the first to see land within the Antarctic Circle. It was also his belief that the antarctic continent extended furthest to the north opposite the southern Atlantic and Indian Oceans owing, for one reason, to the greater degree of cold. In this he was quite correct.
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Many years passed before any further attempts at geographical discovery were made in this region. At length, however, the Russian Government, in July, 1819, sent an expedition to the southern seas, consisting of two vessels, the Vostak under Captain Bellingshausen, commander of the expedition, and the Mirnyi under Captain Lazareff. Bellingshausen, like Cook, made the circuit of the southern ocean in high latitudes. He reached the edge of the pack in 69° 30′, and in March, 1820, arrived at Van Diemen’s Land. In October of the same year he again sailed and kept to a high latitude, between 60° and 67°, in the South Pacific. In January 1821 he reached 70°, his furthest south, in Long. 92° 10′ W. a short distance to the eastward of Cook’s furthest, but not so far south. On the 11th of this month he discovered an island in 69° S. and 91° W., nine miles long and apparently of very considerable altitude, but he was a long way off. He named it Peter Island. The discovery is important as indicating the extension of the continental shelf to that point. Alexander Land was sighted further east, in the same high latitude, but at a distance of 40 miles. In July, 1821, Bellingshausen’s expedition returned to Cronstadt.