CHARLES WILKES. 353 



leading chiefs, and succeeded in establishing a com- 

 mercial treaty with them, which was calculated to 

 prove highly advantageous to both nations. 



Leaving Tahiti on the 10th of October, the squa- 

 dron still steered westward. On the 27th of Novem- 

 ber they touched the coast of New Holland, or New 

 South Wales. As no duties of importance devolved 

 upon the officers of the squadron here, except to 

 obtain a fresh supply of provisions, they sailed from 

 the port of Sidney on the 26th of December, for the 

 purpose of entering on their Antarctic cruise. Soon 

 they encountered the drifting ice, and passed several 

 icebergs which were a mile in circumference. On 

 the 19th of January, 1840, the most important 

 achievement of the expedition was accomplished, in 

 the discovery of a new continent, situated about two 

 thousand miles south of Australia ; which the heroic 

 commander explored for a distance of seventeen 

 hundred miles from east to west, comprising the 

 most extensive land yet known in that quarter of 

 the globe. It is a remarkable circumstance that, 

 on the very same day, a portion of the same coast 

 was seen by Commodore D'Urville, commanding 

 the French Exploring Expedition, composed of the 

 corvettes Astrolobe and Zelee. That vast and still- 

 unexplored region is termed the Antarctic Conti- 

 nent ; and it seems chiefly to be one immense mana 

 X so* 



