THE ANTARCTIC OCEAN. 661 



Circle," says Lieutenant Maury, " is included an area equal in extent 

 to one sixth of the entire land-surface of our planet. Most of this im- 

 mense area is as unknown to the inhabitants of the earth as the interior 

 of one of Jupiter's satellites. . . . For the last two hundred years the 

 Arctic Ocean has been a theatre of exploration ; but, as for the Antarc- 

 tic, no expedition has attempted to make any persistent exploration, or 

 even to winter there." It is noteworthy, too, that in the voyages which 

 have been made not a ship nor a life has been lost south of the circle. 

 " It does not appear," says one writer, " that Antarctic voyages would 

 be attended with any excessive degree of danger. ... It may even be 

 found that the Antarctic barriers are impenetrable ; but this has cer- 

 tainly not as yet been demonstrated." 



In consequence of this limited exploration, comparatively little is 

 known of the physical condition of this part of the globe. It has been 

 conjectured that a vast continent exist in it. But, if it is there, only 

 mere outlying parts of it have been seen, and those that are known 

 are of such a character as to preclude their being of any value to the 

 world. " Consider for a moment," says Captain Hogg, in his account 

 of the second voyage of Captain Cook, "what thick fogs, snows, 

 storms, intense cold, and everything dangerous to navigation, must be 

 encountered by every hardy adventurer ; behold the horrid aspect of a 

 country impenetrable by the animating heat of the sun's rays ; a coun- 

 try doomed to be immersed in everlasting snow ! See the islands and 

 floats on the coast, and the continual falls of the ice-cliffs in the ports ; 

 these difficulties, which might be heightened by others not less danger- 

 ous, are sufficient to deter any one from the rash attempt of proceeding 

 farther to the south than our expert and brave commander has done, 

 in search of unknown countries, which, when discovered, will answer 

 no valuable purpose whatever." 



The discoveries of Gheritk, Cook, Weddell, Bisco, D'Urville, 

 Wilkes, and Ross and, if to these we add the Challenger Expedition, 

 we have the whole number of explorers have revealed the existence 

 of a certain amount of land within the Antarctic Circle. In the year 

 1600 Theodoric de Gheritk was driven during a gale as far as 64 south 

 latitude, and reported land in that neighborhood. In his second voy- 

 age, Captain Cook penetrated during the summer seasons of 1773-75 

 to 71 south without finding land previously reported in certain dis- 

 tricts ; yet he, as well as most of the earlier geographers and naviga- 

 tors, believed firmly in the existence of a southern continent, of little 

 use, as he supposed it to be, for " the ice that is spread over this vast 

 Southern Ocean must originate," in Cook's opinion, "in a track [tract] 

 of land . . . which lies near the pole, and extends farthest to the 

 north opposite the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans ; for, ice being 

 found in these farther to the north than anywhere else, . . . land of 

 considerable extent must exist near the south." 



This land was largely conjectural until the expeditions sent out by 



