CHAPTER VI 



Cook in the Antarctic and in Alaska 



WHILE for years strenuous efforts were being made to break 

 through the circle of mystery surrounding the North 

 Pole, and place that unknown region in the category of 

 the known, the study of the Antarctic realm remained long neg- 

 lected. The most brilliant period in Antarctic research was that 

 extending from 1838 to 1843, when three great national expeditions, 

 under the command of Admiral D'Urville for France, Sir James 

 Ross for England, and Captain Wilkes for the United States, sought 

 that distant region. Captain Wilkes gave America pre-eminence 

 in the results, by discovering a continental stretch of land, extend- 

 ing over many parallels of longitude. Though his results have been 

 discredited and the importance of his discovery allowed to sink out 

 of sight, recent research, especially that of Lieutenant Shackleton, 

 has confirmed his statements, and Wilkes 5 Land has won its true^i 

 place in Antarctic geography. Sir James Ross discovered active 

 volcanoes in South Victoria Land, 12,000 feet in height, but a great 

 wall of ice prevented him from reaching them. 



For many years after this period the Antarctic region was prac- 

 tically deserted by explorers, and it was not until the final decade 

 of the nineteenth century that active attention was again directed 

 towards it. This is of special importance to us here, from the fact 

 that Dr. Cook, fresh from his expedition to North Greenland with 

 Lieutenant Peary, was one of the first of recent geographers to 

 direct attention to the South. As he had aided in exploring the 

 North, he burned with the desire to plunge into the secrets of the far 

 South, and in 1894 proposed an expedition in that direction. He 



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