THE VOYAGE OF THE HURON AND THE HUNTRESS 



Tending SSW & NNE it was Litcraly filled with Ice and the shore 

 inaccessible thought it not Prudent to Venture in we Bore away to 

 the Northw'd and saw 2 small Islands and the shore every where Per- 

 pendicular we stood across toward Freseland [Livingston Island] course 

 NNW the Latditude[sic] of the mouth of the strait was 63.45 S End 

 with fine weather wind SSW." 



With this entry, several American historians, notably Colonel Lawrence 

 Martin and Professor William H. Hobbs, claim that Captain Palmer dis- 

 covered the Antarctic Continent. The course which they set for the Hero has 

 been stated above and has received considerable approbation. Captain Na- 

 thaniel Brown Palmer was an outstanding mariner. His career rivals fiction. 

 He was a superior shipmaster, a designer of ships, a very successful captain 

 in the China trade, and a man of unusual ability. It is a pity that the fire which 

 destroyed his home In Stonlngton also burned many of his papers. A further 

 examination of his Antarctic exploits will be found In the Appendix. Both 

 Martin and Hobbs have devoted much research to the Palmer cruise of Novem- 

 ber, 1820. 



It is unfortunate that there Is no evidence (in the logbook entries noted 

 above) that Captain Palmer ever took a sight on these days or even kept up 

 his position by dead reckoning. The estimate he gives for the mouth of the 

 strait he discovered cannot be verified by any of such observations. 



A further aspect to the interpretation of this particular cruise of the Hero is 

 Captain Palmer's description of his course after he left his harbor on the after- 

 noon of November 17, 1820. He states: ". . . stood over for the Land Course 

 S by E 3^ ... at 8 p.m. got over under the Land found the sea filled with imense 

 Ice Bergs — at 12 hove Too . . . Laid off & on until morning at 4 AM made sail 

 in shore and Discovered a Strait. . . . shore every where Perpendicular we stood 

 across towards Freseland Course N N W. . . ." If he was some fifty miles away 

 from Livingston or Frezeland Island, as several historians claim, and under the 

 shores of the peninsula, it is obvious that he would not have carefully noted 

 that he was going to stand "across towards Freseland." He must have been 

 in much closer proximity to this great Island. 



During the next twenty-four hours. Captain Palmer saw "plenty of whales 

 and Ice." At 2 o'clock in the morning on November 19, he took in his main- 

 sail and "Laid off and On under Freesland," and at 4 o'clock he made sail, 

 "Running along shore course by compass NNE" until at 6 o'clock he discovered 

 the mouth of a harbor, where he went ashore and killed one seal. This was a 

 cruise into Yankee Sound and he soon dropped anchor at Half Moon Island, 

 "about 2 miles from the strait's mouth."'** 



This cruise can be followed clearly. Was the entrance to Yankee Sound the 

 "strait's mouth" as Captain Palmer called It? It was not the same strait he 

 had sighted the day before and they had found inaccessible due to ice. The 

 latitude as given by Palmer is not the same as the actual latitude of the Sound. 

 In fact the only contemporary description of this portion of the South Shetlands 



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