SCOPE OF THE OBSERVATIONS 49 



For the first four years, from 1926 to 1929, the investigations were concentrated mainly in the 

 Falklands sector of Antarctica, notably round South Georgia, for it was there, from the land-based 

 whale-catchers of the time, that most of the whaling then took place (Discovery Reports, Station Lists, 

 1929 and 1930). From 1929 onwards, with the rise and spread of the pelagic industry (Hjort, Lie and 

 Ruud, 1932), the observations began to be extended farther and farther afield until as time went on 

 they eventually came to cover practically the entire Antarctic Ocean, reaching northwards in many 

 instances from the polar continent itself, or from very close to it, far into Subtropical waters (Discovery 

 Reports, Station Lists, 1932, 1941, 1942, 1944, 1947, 1949 and 1957). Only in the Weddell Sea south 

 of 65° S (see Figs, i and 4) and between 30° and 60° W, and again in the Pacific sector south of 

 70° S, and between 90° and 150° W, are there significant gaps in the otherwise closely knit pattern 

 of our circumpolar coverage. In both areas the pack-ice has for long been known to be exceptionally 

 compact and impenetrable, the narratives of the early explorers. Cook (1777), Bellingshausen (1945),^ 

 D'Urville (1842), Ross (1847), Larsen (1894), Nordenskjold (1905), Bruce (1906), Filchner (1922), 

 Shackleton (1919) and Wordie (19216), showing that both in the Pacific sector and Weddell Sea it 

 has existed as a permanent obstruction to navigation from the late eighteenth century onwards. Even 

 James Weddell's much extolled high southern record of February 1823, when with the 'Jane' and 

 'Beaufoy ' he sailed into the great gulf which now bears his name, and, reaching 74° 15' S, found there 

 and to the south ' a clear and navigable sea ', need not be taken, as it generally is, to indicate that that 

 year was phenomenal and that the whole of the Weddell Sea lay open.^ Much of Weddell's southerly 

 route, as his track-chart shows, lay approximately along the 30th meridian west longitude and his 

 northerly route between 35° and 40° W. Both inward and outward passages, therefore, were made 

 well to the eastward of where the hard core of the obstruction has always been found to lie. The most 

 we can safely conclude in fact is that in February 1823 the Weddell Sea was phenomenally open 

 between 30° and 35° W, and, as Debenham (1959) also suggests, possibly has never been so open 

 since. It may be remarked too that where so many have failed it is extremely unlikely that either 

 Morrell, who has been so widely discredited, in the 'Wasp', or Johnson, in the 'Henry', ever reached 

 the high latitudes Morrell (1832) claims that they did between meridians 40° and 48° W. Even if 

 Morrell, who claims to have sailed over so much of what is now known to be the continental land, 

 did in fact reach 70° 14' S in these parts in March 1823, as Roberts (1958) suggests is probable, 

 I think he must have done so well to the east of 40° W. Mill (1905), and Wordie (1921a), in his 

 bathymetric survey of the Weddell Sea, both cast serious doubt on the claims that Morrell has made, 

 while Kling (1922), who in June 1912 sledged over the sea ice towards 'Morrell Land', or 'New South 

 Greenland ' as it has also been called, from the beset and drifting ' Deutschland ', is equally sceptical. 

 But perhaps the most damning of all historians is Fricker (1900), who, drawing attention to the 

 audacity and ' travellers tales ' with which Morrell adorned his accounts and his frequent departures 

 into the ' realm of plausible fable ', notes with regret at the beginning of this century that the New 

 South Greenland of the ' Henry ' together with other equally palpable inventions of this romancing 

 sealer 'still haunt our charts'. They continued to haunt them in fact until 1930 when John Bartholo- 

 mew and Son, Ltd, Edinburgh, published a South Polar Chart based at that time on the latest informa- 

 tion available. One must, however, in fairness quote Gould (1929), a leading defender of Morrell 

 though sceptical of much that he claims, ' ... we can at least be charitable to the memory of a man who 

 has, I suggest, received far more than his due share of posthumous defamation'. The only major 



1 I refer here to the recent English translation of Captain Bellingshausen's original report which was published in 

 St Petersburg in 183 1. 



^ Hobbs (1939) has made the surprising and groundless suggestion that this voyage never even took place, that it was in 

 fact a fake and that Weddell's historic account can be relegated to the 'realm of fiction'. 



