50 THE OCEAN WOELD. 



establishing itself in these countries, and drawing from the earth the 

 combustible so needed to make it habitable, thus furnishing the means 

 of overcoming the rigorous climatic conditions of these inhospitable 

 regions. 



The Antarctic Pole is probably surrounded by an icy canopy not 

 less than two thousand five hundred miles in diameter ; and numerous 

 circumstances lead to the conclusion that the vast mass has diminished 

 since 1774, when the region was visited by Captain Cook. The Ant- 

 arctic region can only be approached during the summer, namely, in 

 December, January, and February. 



The first navigator who penetrated the Antarctic circle was the 

 Dutch captain, Theodoric de Gheritk, whose vessel formed part of the 

 squadron commanded* by Simon de Cordes, destined for the East 

 Indies. In January, 1600, a tempest having dispersed the squadron, 

 Captain Gheritk was driven as far south as the sixty-fourth parallel, 

 where he observed a coast which reminded him of Norway. It was 

 mountainous, covered with snow, stretching from the coast to the 

 Isles of Solomon. The report of Simon de Cordes was received with 

 great incredulity, and the doubts raised were only dissipated when the 

 New South Shetland Islands were definitely recognized. The idea of 

 an Antarctic continent is, however, one of the oldest conceptions of 

 speculative geography, and one which mariners and philosophers alike 

 have found it most difficult to relinquish. The existence of a southern 

 continent seemed to them to be the necessary counterpoise to the 

 Arctic land. The Terra Australis incognita is marked on all the 

 maps of Mercator, round the South Pole, and when the Dutch officer, 

 Kerguelen, discovered, in 1772, the island which bears his name, he 

 quoted this idea of Mercator as the motive which suggested the 

 voyage. In 1774, Captain Cook ventured up to and beyond the 

 seventy-first degree of latitude under the one hundred and ninth 

 degree west longitude. He traversed a hundred and eighty leagues, 

 between the fiftieth degree and sixtieth degree of south latitude, 

 without finding the land of which mariners had spoken : this led him 

 to conclude that mountains of ice, or the great fog-banks of the region, 

 had been mistaken for a continent. Nevertheless, Cook clung to the 

 idea of the existence of a southern continent. " I firmly believe," he 

 says, " that near the Pole there is land where most part of the ice is 



