THE ANTAKCTIC REGIONS. 



277 



natives. If the story be not altogether apocryphal, it may possibly have been some part 

 of New Zealand. At the same period there were wild reports in circulation concerning the 

 discovery by Alvaro Mendana de Neyra of some southern islands abounding in silver. 

 That navigator, however, could not find them at all in a later voyage, and perished miserably, 

 with many of his companions, at Egmont, or Santa Cruz Island. His pilot, Pedro Fernandez 

 de Quiros, in 1605-6 made a professed voyage in search of the southern continent, his 

 voyage resulting in the discovery of Piteairn's Island, the New Hebrides, and other lands, 

 while one of his captains, Luis Vaes de Torres, passed through the strait between Australia 



VIEW OF CAPE HORN. 



and New Guinea now named after him. The first actual approach to the then unknown 

 southern polar lands appears to have been made by one Dirk Gerritz, a Dutchman, in January^ 

 1600. This vessel was in the East India service, and was driven by a gale from the immediate 

 latitude of the Straits of Magellan far to the south, where he discovered a barren, craggy, 

 snow-covered coast, similar to that of Norway. His accounts were discredited, but have 

 since proved to have been accurate enough, and the land is now known as New South 

 Shetland, and has been proved to cross the Antarctic circle. The expeditions of Kerguelen, 

 sent out for the purpose of exploring the southern regions, resulted only in the discovery 

 of the group of islands now known by his name. It is to the celebrated Captain Cook 

 that we owe the earliest careful explorations of the south polar regions. 



Late in November, 1772, H.M. ships Resolution and Adventure left the Cape of Good 

 Hope in search of the unknown continent, and early in December of the same year were 

 driven by several gales among and in dangerous proximity to icebergs, one of which is 



