DRAKE AND GERRITSZ 5 



accomplished the first circumnavigation of the world, 

 and thus established in the popular mind the fact that 

 the earth was really round. From that time the idea 

 of the Antarctic regions assumed definite shape. There 

 must be something in the South : whether land or water 

 the future was to determine. 



In 1578 we come to the renowned English seaman, 

 Sir Francis Drake. Though he was accounted a buc- 

 caneer, we owe him honour for the geographical dis- 

 coveries he made. He rounded Cape Horn and proved 

 that Tierra del Fuego was a great group of islands and 

 not part of an Antarctic continent, as many had thought. 



The Dutchman, Dirk Gerritsz, who took part in a 

 plundering expedition to India in 1599 by way of the 

 Straits of Magellan, is said to have been blown out of 

 his course after passing the straits, and to have found 

 himself in lat. 64 S. under high land covered with 

 snow. This has been assumed to be the South Shetland 

 Islands, but the account of the voyage is open to doubt. 



In the seventeenth century we have the discoveries 

 of Tasman, and towards its close English adventurers 

 reported having reached high latitudes in the South 

 Atlantic. 



The English Astronomer Royal, Halley, undertook a 

 scientific voyage to the South in 1699 for the purpose of 

 making magnetic observations, and met with ice in 52 S., 

 from which latitude he returned to the north. 



The Frenchman,Bouvet (1738) ,was the first to follow 



