Patagonia was connected by land with Graham Land, and spread out to a great width. At that time the warm coast current from Brazil would have flowed down to the coasts of Antarctica, causing that region to be much warmer than it is now. These geological facts give rise to alluring and not altogether impossible conjectures.
The results of the Nordenskiöld expedition were of great value, serving to connect, as they do, the Andes with the Antarctic mountain range of Graham Land, and perhaps with a continuous range further south. The expedition was without comparison the most important of all the private enterprises which have undertaken discoveries in the far south in recent years, except of course the great expeditions of Captain Scott[200].
Bruce
The expedition under Mr Bruce was for a very short time south of the Antarctic circle, most of its two years and a half duration being devoted to scientific investigations in two islands of the South Orkneys.
Mr Bruce was a natural history student. In that capacity, in 1893, he made a voyage to the south in one of the whalers, the Balaena, Captain Robertson. From 1894–96 he was at the meteorological station on the summit of Ben Nevis, and in 1896–97 he served under Jackson during his last winter in Franz Josef Land. Having received a promise of support from Mr James and Major Andrew Coats, wealthy manufacturers at Paisley, he went to Norway and bought an old vessel of 400 tons called the Hecla, which required much repair. Captain Robertson was master of the ship, which was renamed the Scotia, and there was a scientific staff. The main object appears to have been deep sea sounding. The Scotia sailed on the 2nd November 1902, and in the first year she crossed the Antarctic Circle, went south as far as 70° 25′, and then returned to winter at the South Orkneys.
The two islands of the South Orkneys, called Laurie and Coronation, were discovered by a sealing captain named Powell in the Dove in 1821. They had been visited by Weddell, who named them, by Dumont d’Urville in 1838, and by Larsen in 1893. Bruce and his staff took meteorological, magnetic, and tidal observations, and made biological and geological researches and collections. Silurian fossils were found, and some evidence was obtained to show that the Patagonian coast once extended to these islands and beyond them.
In the second season the Scotia crossed the Antarctic Circle in 32° W. on February 27th, 1904, finding a depth of 2630 fathoms. The ship was now in King George’s Sea of Weddell. Icebergs of immense size were met with, far too large to have come off the mountain slopes. They pointed to a vast glacial formation analogous to Ross’s ice barrier. On the 3rd March, when in 72° 18′ S. and 17° 59′ W. with a depth of 1131 fathoms, a line of ice cliffs 100 to 180 feet high was sighted, but could not be approached nearer than two miles. These cliffs were probably resting on land which is a continuation of the coast of Antarctica from Enderby Land. The line of cliffs was traced for 150 miles, and a sounding on the continental shelf gave 159 fathoms. Mr Bruce named the ice cliffs Coats Land. On the 9th March, the Scotia was in 74° 1′ S. and 22° W. and on the 14th she was headed north. The soundings obtained were from 2000 to 2600 fathoms. On the 27th the Antarctic Circle was again crossed, the Scotia having been 28 days south of it. After a second winter at the South Orkneys the expedition returned.
Drygalski
German scientific students had long taken a great interest in Antarctic research, and Dr Neumeyer, a native of Frankenthal near Worms, did more than anyone else out of England to arouse an interest in the subject. He had been in charge of the observatory at Melbourne from 1858 to 1862, and afterwards became chief of the Seewarte at Hamburg. When the German Antarctic expedition was decided upon and funds were raised, it was wisely resolved to build a vessel specially for the service, to be named the Gauss after the great magnetician of Göttingen. She was built at Kiel of the best dry oak and pitch pine. Her gross tonnage was 650, her length 165 ft., breadth 37 ft., depth 22 ft., speed when laden 5 knots. She could carry 600 tons of coal, and was well adapted for Antarctic work.
Professor Neumeyer was of opinion that, to secure adequate results, the command should be given to a naval officer. But eventually Dr Erik von Drygalski was selected, a physicist who had studied glacial action in Greenland and was the author of a work on the subject[201]. An accomplished scientific staff accompanied him, and Captain Hans Ruser was Captain of the ship and navigator.