302 



NATURE 



[June 8, 19 16 



the uninhabited side of South -Georgia, he has 

 achieved the fine mountaineering feat of the first 

 traverse of that rugged ice-capped island. 



The narrative of Sir Ernest Shackleton in the 

 Daily Chronicle of June 2 confirms the expecta- 

 tion that the Endurance had come to grief in the 

 heavy ice of the Weddell Sea. She left South 

 Georgia on December 6, 1914, and sailed to the 

 south-east, entering the pack at 58° 40' S., 18° W. 

 After a passage of 1000 miles through crowded 

 ice-floes Coats Land was sighted on January 10, 

 191 5. The expedition, continuing westward, dis- 

 covered 200 miles of new land, the Caird Coast, 



A T L A N T t C 



OCEAN 



"ENDURANCE 

 STARTED FROM 

 HERE DEC.6.ISI* 



Falkland I? lA^mv^fl mav j<":sn 



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Str. 



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^ *" ** TA South 



C.florru 



Sin i.SMACKLCTQN 

 AND /»AflTV OF fIVE. 

 LtFT fOn S.6£0/*GfA 

 APRIL 24 uaAVi/vO 

 22 M£/v BEHIND. 



^^ 



^^•' 



— -TA' South 

 'o"g|X^6eorgia 



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Elephant ,*^';„^_ ,^. South 

 -■ ^^ ^^^ /. Orkneys 



South ^^ 

 Shetlands ? ^" 



Statute Miles 



GEOR&e PHILIk iL SON. LTD.] 



Map of Sir Ernest Shackleton's route. Reproduced by permission of the Daily Chronicle. 



which appears to fill the gap between Coats Land 

 and Filchner's Prince Leopold Land, and thus 

 to prove that they are part of the Antarctic con- 

 tinent and not off-lying islands. The Endurance 

 was, however, unable to reach the hoped-for base. 

 From the latitude of 77°, her furthest south, she 

 was carried northward, the direction of drift being 

 apparently controlled by land to the west. This 

 land does not, however, extend as far east as was 

 thought. Capt. Benjamin Morrell, an American 

 sealer, claimed to ha-fre discovered land, which he 



NO. 2432, VOL. 97] 



called New South Greenland, in 1823. Morrell 

 was generally dismissed as the Munchausen of the 

 Antarctic until Dr. Bruce accepted his records,, 

 largely on the ground that his other record of new 

 land was supported by Ross's observation of 

 apparent land at 75° S., 44° W. If those two- 

 records had been confirmed, the land to the 

 west of Weddell Sea would project north- 

 westward in two great peninsulas, Grahamland 

 to the north-west, and Morrell 's New South 

 Greenland to the south-east. The axes of these 

 lands would have been concentric with one an- 

 other, and also with the line, further to the north- 

 west, of the South Shetlands and 

 South Orkneys. 



Sir Ernest Shackleton has 

 found 1900 fathoms of water over 

 the site of New South Greenland. 

 He has therefore restored to the 

 Weddell Sea its great extension 

 westward and modified the pos- 

 sible interpretation of the struc- 

 ture of the Grahamland region. 

 Morrell may have mistaken ice 

 for land or may have been merely 

 wrong in his longitude — a very 

 excusable mistake at that date \ 

 and that an extensive land exists 

 not far west of the course of the 

 Endurance is suggested by the' 

 exceptionally heavy ice pressures 

 by which she was wrecked ; but 

 the supposed peninsula to the 

 south-east of Grahamland and 

 Ross's apparent land are defin- 

 itely disproved. 



The Endurance was crushed orr 

 October 28, and sank on Novem- 

 ber 20 as the ice opened during 

 the drift further to the norths 

 The expedition camped on the 

 floes, and passed in sight of 

 Joinville Island, off" the north- 

 eastern end of Grahamland, but 

 it was inaccessible. The expedi- 

 tion endeavoured to reach Decep- 

 tion Island, where there are huts 

 and stores of food ; but it was un- 

 able to force a way to the western 

 end of the South Shetlands and- 

 landed, on April 15, on Elephant 

 Island, one of its north-eastern 

 members. It is a rugged, clifT- 

 bound island rising to the height of 3500 feet, and 

 though there are fair anchorages, landing appears 

 to be difficult. As the food supply was low Sir 

 Ernest Shackleton left twenty-two of his men 

 camped in an excavation in the ice and started, on 

 April 24, with Capt. Worsley and three others, in 

 one of the ship's boats for South Georgia. The 

 Falkland Islands are nearer; but South Georgia 

 offered an easier course and the attraction that 

 one of its whalers might be available for the- 

 immediate rescue of the party on Elephant Island.. 



I 



