♦62 Return of the Russian Expedition. — Mount Rosa. 



the merchants find it more profitable to make their remittances 

 in produce than in bills. — Morn. Chron. June 21. 



RETURN OF THE RUSSIAN ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION. 



This expedition, under the command of Captain Bellings- 

 hausen, has added to our knowledge of the South Polar Re- 

 gions, by the discovery of two islands within the Antarctic 

 circle, the only land hitherto known to exist so far to the south- 

 ward. Both these islands lie in about 69° south latitude ; 

 one of them, named Alexander I.'s Island, in 73° west longi- 

 tude; and the other, Peter Island, in 19° west. Both of them 

 were so closely enveloped in ice, that no particular examina- 

 tion of them could be made. This expedition, consisting of 

 two ships, the Wostok and the Mirni, sailed on the 3d of July 

 1819. They touched at Copenhagen to improve their equip- 

 ment, and at Portsmouth to take on board the astronomical 

 instruments which had been ordered for them in London, and 

 from thence proceeded to Teneriffe and Rio Janeiro, on their 

 way to the southward. The leading object of the voyage was 

 to explore the Antarctic regions, and perform a circuit of 

 the southern pole as near to it as the ice would permit; and, 

 avoiding the, track of Captain Cook, to make their highest pe- 

 netration where this navigator had kept at a distance from the 

 ice, and on the contrary to retire into a more northerly pa- 

 rallel in the meridians where the adventurous Cook had made 

 the most particular examinations. On this judicious plan, they 

 succeeded in the discovery of the two islands we have men- 

 tioned ; but they could not approach within thirty miles of 

 them for ice, and that only on the west side. The ice was ge- 

 nerally found to lie so far from the pole, that their highest 

 latitude was only 70 degrees, being short of the point reached 

 bv Cook. Within the antarctic circle they traversed a di- 

 stance of near 30 degrees of longitude ; and taking the lati- 

 tude of 60 degrees, we find that 300 degrees of longitude were 

 traced in the two voyages by Cook and Bellingshausen within 

 this parallel, leaving only 60 degrees of longitude unexplored 

 at this elevation.— ^o/>. to Art. Polar Regions, by Mr. Scoresby, 

 in the Edinb. Encyclopaedia, vol. xvii. Part I. about to appear. 



MOUNT ROSA, THE HIGHEST IN EUROPE. 



Dr. Brewster has published, in his new ' Edinburgh 

 Journal of Science,' from the Memoirs of the Royal Academy 

 of Turin, a translation of an account of the first ascent of the 

 southern summit of Mount Rosa, by M.M. Zumstein and 

 Vincent. Having determined, by means of the barometer, 

 that the elevation of the southern summit, which they had 



gained 



