ADDRESS. 93 



the Shetland, latitude 64, and tends to the southward and west- 

 ward, further than any navigator has yet penetrated. Cook was 

 standing for this land when his progress was arrested by the ice ; 

 which, we apprehend, must always be the case in that point, and 

 so early in the season as the 6th of January ; and we should not 

 be surprised if a portion of the icy mountains described was 

 attached to the main body of Palmer's Land, or to some other 

 detached portions of land lying further to the southward . and 

 westward. 



Captains Kruzenstern and Urey Lisiansky, who were sent out 

 to circumnavigate the globe by Alexander I, of Russia, in 1803, 

 did not reach a higher degree of south latitude than 59 58' in 

 longitude 70 15' W., when they met with currents setting 

 strongly towards the east. In this latitude, Kruzenstern speaks of 

 whales being in great abundance, but does not mention having 

 seen any ice ; this was in March. 



Had Kruzenstern continued his course south, he would have 

 made the south-westerly portion of the Shetland Islands, and 

 afterwards Palmer's Land. Had he been earlier in the season, he 

 must have encountered ice. The winds prevailing as they do, 



from the southward and westward, had carried it, aided by cur- 



' 



rents, into that icy region, bounded on the north by Georgia, east 

 by Sandwich Land and South Orkneys, and west by the South 

 Shetland Islands. 



The testimony of Weddell, who pierced to the highest parallel 

 of south latitude known to have been attained by man, is decidedly 

 at variance with the opinion of Captain Cook, respecting the 

 extent of impenetrable ice to the South Pole. Mr. Weddell, 

 although his two frail little barks were often beset by towering 

 icebergs, and placed in imminent danger, does not appear to have 

 encountered, indeed his vessels could not have withstood, the 

 impediments opposed to northern navigators in similar latitudes. 

 Nothing can be more encouraging than this gentleman's state- 



