political rights 



Attitude of the United States 



Our Department of State has never acquiesced in various 

 tions made that this country should claim sovereignty over 

 Land because of the discoveries of the Wilkes Expedition 



249 



sugges- 

 Wilkes 

 (1840), 



Fig. 2 — Map showing the present status of political sovereignty in the Antarctic. Scale, i : 80,000,000. 

 (Reprinted, with modifications, from Foreign Affairs, Vol. 4.) 



which was official in the strict sense, having been authorized by Act 

 of Congress of May i8, 1836. As recently as 1924 Secretary of State 

 Hughes wrote to an inquiring citizen as follows: "It is the opinion 

 of the Department that the discovery of lands unknown to civiliza- 

 tion, even when coupled with a formal taking of possession, does not 



