It had been Captain Guy's original intention, after satisfying himself
about the Auroras, to proceed through the Strait of Magellan, and up
along the western coast of Patagonia; but information received at
Tristan d'Acunha induced him to steer to the southward, in the hope of
falling in with some small islands said to lie about the parallel of
60° S., longitude 41° 20' W. In the event of his not discovering these
lands, he designed, should the season prove favourable, to push on
towards the pole. Accordingly, on the twelfth of December, we made sail
in that direction. On the eighteenth we found ourselves about the
station indicated by Glass, and cruised for three days in that
neighbourhood without finding any traces of the islands he had
mentioned. On the twenty-first, the weather being unusually pleasant,
we again made sail to the southward, with the resolution of penetrating
in that course as far as possible. Before entering upon this portion of
my narrative, it may be as well, for the information of those readers
who have paid little attention to the progress of discovery in these
regions, to give some brief account of the very few attempts at
reaching the southern pole which have hitherto been made.
That of Captain Cook was the first of which we have any distinct
account. In 1772 he sailed to the south in the Resolution, accompanied
by Lieutenant Furneaux in the Adventure. In December he found himself
as far as the fifty-eighth parallel of south latitude, and in longitude
26° 57' E. Here he met with narrow fields of ice, about eight or ten
inches thick, and running northwest and southeast. This ice was in
large cakes, and usually it was packed so closely that the vessels had
great difficulty in forcing a passage. At this period Captain Cook
supposed, from the vast number of birds to be seen, and from other
indications, that he was in the near vicinity of land. He kept on to
the southward, the weather being exceedingly cold, until he reached the
sixty-fourth parallel, in longitude 38° 14' E. Here he had mild
weather, with gentle breezes, for five days, the thermometer being at
thirty-six. In January, 1773, the vessels crossed the Antarctic circle,
but did not succeed in penetrating much farther; for, upon reaching
latitude 67° 15', they found all farther progress impeded by an immense
body of ice, extending all along the southern horizon as far as the eye
could reach. This ice was of every variety--and some large floes of it,
miles in extent, formed a compact mass, rising eighteen or twenty feet
above the water. It being late in the season, and no hope entertained
of rounding these obstructions, Captain Cook now reluctantly turned to
the northward.
In the November following he renewed his search in the Antarctic. In
latitude 59° 40' he met with a strong current setting to the southward.
In December, when the vessels were in latitude 67° 31', longitude 142°
54' W., the cold was excessive, with heavy gales and fog. Here also
birds were abundant; the albatross, the penguin, and the peterel
especially. In latitude 70° 23' some large islands of ice were
encountered, and shortly afterward, the clouds to the southward were
observed to be of a snowy whiteness, indicating the vicinity of field
ice. In latitude 71° 10', longitude 106° 54' W., the navigators were
stopped, as before, by an immense frozen expanse, which filled the
whole area of the southern horizon. The northern edge of this expanse
was ragged and broken, so firmly wedged together as to be utterly
impassable, and extending about a mile to the southward. Behind it the
frozen surface was comparatively smooth for some distance, until
terminated in the extreme back-ground by gigantic ranges of ice
mountains, the one towering above the other. Captain Cook concluded
that this vast field reached the southern pole or was joined to a
continent. Mr. J. N. Reynolds, whose great exertions and perseverance
have at length succeeded in getting set on foot a national expedition,
partly for the purpose of exploring these regions, thus speaks of the
attempt of the Resolution. "We are not surprised that Captain Cook was
unable to go beyond 71° 10', but we are astonished that he did attain
that point on the meridian of 106° 54' west longitude. Palmer's Land
lies south of the Shetland, latitude sixty-four degrees, and tends to
the southward and westward farther than any navigator has yet
penetrated. Cook was standing for this land when his progress was
arrested by the ice; which, we apprehend, must always be the case in
that point, and so early in the season as the sixth of January--and we
should not be surprised if a portion of the icy mountains described was
attached to the main body of Palmer's Land, or to some other portions
of land lying farther to the southward and westward."
In 1803, Captains Kreutzenstern and Lisiausky were despatched by
Alexander of Russia for the purpose of circumnavigating the globe. In
endeavouring to get south, they made no farther than 59° 58', in
longitude 70° 15' W. They here met with strong currents setting
eastwardly. Whales were abundant, but they saw no ice. In regard to
this voyage, Mr. Reynolds observes that, if Kreutzenstern had arrived
where he did earlier in the season, he must have encountered ice--it
was March when he reached the latitude specified. The winds prevailing,
as they do, from the southward and westward, had carried the floes,
aided by currents, into that icy region bounded on the north by
Georgia, east by Sandwich Land and the South Orkneys, and west by the
South Shetland Islands.
In 1822, Captain James Weddell, of the British navy, with two very
small vessels, penetrated farther to the south than any previous
navigator, and this too, without encountering extraordinary
difficulties. He states that although he was frequently hemmed in by
ice _before_ reaching the seventy-second parallel, yet, upon attaining
it, not a particle was to be discovered, and that, upon arriving at the
latitude of 74° 15', no fields, and only three islands of ice were
visible. It is somewhat remarkable that, although vast flocks of birds
were seen, and other usual indications of land, and although, south of
the Shetlands, unknown coasts were observed from the masthead tending
southwardly, Weddell discourages the idea of land existing in the polar
regions of the south.
On the eleventh of January, 1823, Captain Benjamin Morrell, of the
American schooner Wasp, sailed from Kerguelen's Land with a view of
penetrating as far south as possible. On the first of February he found
himself in latitude 64° 52' S., longitude 118° 27' E. The following
passage is extracted from his journal of that date. "The wind soon
freshened to an eleven-knot breeze, and we embraced this opportunity of
making to the west; being however convinced that the farther we went
south beyond latitude sixty-four degrees the less ice was to be
apprehended, we steered a little to the southward, until we crossed the
Antarctic circle, and were in latitude 69° 15' E. In this latitude
there was _no field ice_, and very few ice islands in sight."
Under the date of March fourteenth I find also this entry. "The sea was
now entirely free of field ice, and there were not more than a dozen
ice islands in sight. At the same time the temperature of the air and
water was at least thirteen degrees higher (more mild) than we had ever
found it between the parallels of sixty and sixty-two south. We were
now in latitude 70° 14' S., and the temperature of the air was
forty-seven, and that of the water forty-four. In this situation I
found the variation to be 14° 27' easterly, per azimuth.... I have
several times passed within the Antarctic circle on different
meridians, and have uniformly found the temperature, both of the air
and the water, to become more and more mild the farther I advanced
beyond the sixty-fifth degree of south latitude, and that the variation
decreases in the same proportion. While north of this latitude, say
between sixty and sixty-five south, we frequently had great difficulty
in finding a passage for the vessel between the immense and almost
innumerable ice islands, some of which were from one to two miles in
circumference, and more than five hundred feet above the surface of the
water."
Being nearly destitute of fuel and water, and without proper
instruments, it being also late in the season, Captain Morrell was now
obliged to put back, without attempting any farther progress to the
southward, although an entirely open sea lay before him. He expresses
the opinion that, had not these overruling considerations obliged him
to retreat, he could have penetrated, if not to the pole itself, at
least to the eighty-fifth parallel. I have given his ideas respecting
these matters somewhat at length, that the reader may have an
opportunity of seeing how far they were borne out by my own subsequent
experience.
In 1831, Captain Briscoe, in the employ of the Messieurs Enderby,
whale-ship owners of London, sailed in the brig Lively for the South
Seas, accompanied by the cutter Tula. On the twenty-eighth of February,
being in latitude 66° 30' S., longitude 47° 31' E., he descried land,
and "clearly discovered through the snow the black peaks of a range of
mountains running E. S. E." He remained in this neighbourhood during
the whole of the following month, but was unable to approach the coast
nearer than within ten leagues, owing to the boisterous state of the
weather. Finding it impossible to make farther discovery during this
season, he returned northward to winter in Van Diemen's Land.
In the beginning of 1832 he again proceeded southwardly, and on the
fourth of February land was seen to the southeast in latitude 67° 15',
longitude 69° 29' W. This was soon found to be an island near the
headland of the country he had first discovered. On the twenty-first of
the month he succeeded in landing on the latter, and took possession of
it in the name of William IV., calling it Adelaide's Island, in honour
of the English queen. These particulars being made known to the Royal
Geographical Society of London, the conclusion was drawn by that body
"that there is a continuous tract of land extending from 47° 30' E. to
69° 29' W. longitude, running the parallel of from sixty-six to
sixty-seven degrees south latitude." In respect to this conclusion Mr.
Reynolds observes, "In the correctness of it we by no means concur; nor
do the discoveries of Briscoe warrant any such inference. It was within
these limits that Weddell proceeded south on a meridian to the east of
Georgia, Sandwich Land, and the South Orkney and Shetland Islands." My
own experience will be found to testify most directly to the falsity of
the conclusion arrived at by the society.
These are the principal attempts which have been made at penetrating to
a high southern latitude, and it will now be seen that there remained,
previous to the voyage of the Jane, nearly three hundred degrees of
longitude in which the Antarctic circle had not been crossed at all. Of
course a wide field lay before us for discovery, and it was with
feelings of most intense interest that I heard Captain Guy express his
resolution of pushing boldly to the southward.