304 DISCOVERY REPORTS 



Islaftd, and his Notes. The editor makes acknowledgment to this Memoir in the following 



passage : 



In pages 194 and 195 are given the results of an exploration by Mr Edward Bransfield, (not 

 Barnsfield,) and a note on the land therein called South-Iceland, from the information of Captain 

 N. B. Palmer, an American, of Connecticut. The latter is inaccurate, as will be seen from the 

 following extracts;. . .The South-Iceland of the James Monroe, is the Powell's Group of the Dove: 

 it is situate, not in the latitude 61° 41', as stated in the newspapers, but in 60° 40', as shown by the 

 New Chart, and was first discovered and explored by the Dove, as hereafter described. 



Thus it appears that Palmer's version of the discovery of the South Orkneys had found 

 its way into the English Press in 1822, and had been published by R. H. Laurie some 

 time before Powell himself came home with the true account of the discovery. This is 

 quite possible, for as has already been stated Palmer probably arrived in America from 

 the South Shetlands before the end of June 1822, whereas Powell according to Bruce did 

 not get back to London until August 26 or about two months later .^ Unfortunately it is 

 not stated to what extent Palmer's information regarding his South Iceland was in- 

 accurate,^ but it is at least significant that the latitude assigned to it in the Press, 

 61° 41' S, is that which appears in Fanning's book for Palmer's Washington Strait, some 

 twelve years later. 



Through the kindness of Lieutenant- Commander R. T. Gould I was able recently 

 to examine a chart entitled Chart of South Shetland, an archipelago discovered by Mr. 

 Wm. Smith in the brig ' Williams', February 1819, published by R. H. Laurie, 53 Fleet 

 Street, London, on October 22, 1828. It is reduced from Powell's larger chart of 

 November 1822 but embodies a good deal of additional matter based on information 

 from the sealers who came after him. Although the South Orkneys do not appear in 

 it in the bottom right-hand corner there is an interesting legend in which R. H. Laurie 

 again champions Powell as the discoverer of that group and again directs attention to 

 the erroneous lattitude (61° 41' S) that was evidently still assigned to it in certain 

 quarters. The legend runs: Powell's Group, otherwise called South Orkney, lies in the 

 parallel of 60.° 40.' {not 61 .° 41 ') and between the meridians of 44.° and 47.° This group 

 was discovered by Captain Powell, in 1821, and his chart of it, zvith the whole of South- 

 Shetland, is nozv published by the Proprietor of this work. 



It may be remarked in conclusion that although Dumont D'Urville, as early as 1842, 

 was fully aware that Fanning's account was largely a fabrication, in recent years Balch 

 and Otto Nordenskjold in writing about Palmer's much-discussed geographical 

 achievement on the southern side of the Bransfield Strait are both inclined to employ it 

 incautiously and without apparently subjecting it to adequate scrutiny. 



1 Bruce, W. S., 1917, loc. cit., p. 251. 



- Some idea of the southerly extent of South Iceland as then laid down in the charts of the South Atlantic 

 is conveyed in the following passage from Weddell {A Voyage towards the South Pole, p. 47): " Our latitude 

 by observation being 63° 21', and longitude by chronometers 45° 22', we were in a situation to have seen 

 what is represented on the South Atlantic chart in common use, as South Iceland, but, alas! no such place 

 exists." 



