290 DISCOVERY REPORTS 



intelligent commanders, both English and American, and he has added to the islands properly South 

 Shetland, another group, considerably more to the East, which he discovered on the 6th of December, 

 1821. 



Powell, it must be observed, was by no means the first explorer of the South Shetlands, 

 nor was his chart of that group the first to be published. Smith, Bransfield, Sherrat, 

 Weddell and Bellingshausen had all been engaged in the preliminary charting of the 

 group before Powell commenced his observations there at the beginning of the season 

 1821-2, and some, although by no means all, of the results of these early explorers had 

 already been pubhshed when Powell's chart made its appearance on November i, 1822. 

 The vague sketch-map of the discoverer, William Smith, had already appeared in the 

 Edinburgh Philosophical Journal in 1820,^ and a somewhat grotesque chart of "New 

 South Shetland"^ by Captain R. Sherrat had been published by Fisher in London on 

 December 21, 1 82 1 . On the other hand the results of Edward Bransfield 's survey, which 

 took place in January to March 1820 before Powell ever arrived at the South Shetlands, 

 were a long time in appearing and actually were not published by the Admiralty until 

 November 30, 1822,^ almost a month after the appearance of Powell's chart. Weddell's 

 observations, although actually begun about a year before Powell's, were extended off 

 and on over a period of about three years from the end of 1820 until the end of 1823 and 

 his chart was not published until 1825.^ The results of the very accurate running survey 

 of the southern side of the group carried out by Bellingshausen in February 1821 were 

 still longer in appearing and were not published in St Petersburg until 1831.^ Never- 

 theless, of all these early charts Powell's is so much the superior^ in scope, accuracy, and 

 wealth of detail that it may justly be regarded as being by far the most important con- 

 tribution to the contemporary hydrography of this region. 



It is clear that Powell had interests far beyond his daily business of sealing, for 

 Michaud records that he collected specimens of soil from the South Shetlands for the 

 Royal Society, and in his own journal he makes frequent reference to his soundings (of 

 which he took a considerable number both at the South Shetlands and the South Ork- 

 neys), the state of the tides, and the set and strength of currents. On p. 4 of his Notes 



1 Miers, J., 1820, Account of the Discovery of Netv South Shetland, zvith observations on its importance in a 

 Geographical, Commercial, and Political point of vinv: zvith two Plates. Edin. Phil. Journ., in, plate xii, fig. 2, 



P- 367- 



- This chart accompanied an article by Sherrat in the Imperial Magazine, Vol. in, 1821. 



3 Gould, R. T., 1925, The First Sighting of the Antarctic Continent, Geog. Journ., LXV, No. 3, p. 221. 



* See p. 132 of the first edition of Weddell's book A Voyage towards the South Pole, in which his chart of 

 the South Shetlands facing p. 128 appeared for the first time. 



'" See Mill, H. R., 1905, The Siege of the South Pole, pp. 128-30 (London). Bellingshausen's chart of the 

 South Shetlands first appeared in his Atlas (plate 62) which was published in St Petersburg in 1831 ; but his 

 excellent work on the southern side of the South Shetland archipelago was not generally recognized until 

 long afterwards. 



* Except of course for his southern coast-line, which is inferior to Bellingshausen's for the obvious reason 

 that Powell in his construction of it had to rely on the information of others. Bruce, in Report of the Inter- 

 departmental Committee on Research and Development, 1920, p. 34, regards Bellingshausen's as the best of the 

 early running surveys of the southern side of the group. 



