254 POLAR PROBLEMS 



gained in the Arctic. But, for one who had suffered a land campaign 

 in the Antarctic, the extreme severity of the cHmate points to the 

 conclusion that, even if the rocky crust of the earth thereabouts only 

 rises above sea level in scattered patches, with potential waterways 

 between, the whole is nevertheless likely to be buried beneath and 

 welded together by a great ice cap extending far from the pole in all 

 directions. 



Subsequent exploration has substantiated this latter contention 

 and has given further confidence in the existence of a great Antarctic 

 Continent the outline of which is probably very much as shown on the 

 maps in this volume. 



Present Status of Knowledge of Antarctic Coasts 



In the Ross Sea region, that part of the coast line extending from 

 King Edward VII Land to the west is now thoroughly well known and 

 most of it accurately charted to beyond North Cape (165° E.), which 

 is a considerable distance to the west of Cape Adare. This is the 

 result of the labors of many British expeditions, principally those of 

 Ross, Scott, and Shackleton.^ 



Between Cape North and King George V Land is a section which 

 has not yet been charted, but in which the location of the coast is ap- 

 proximately known. This is made more definite owing to the sighting 

 by the last Scott expedition of a stretch of low shore in the middle of 

 the area. This they named Gates Land. 



King George V Land was charted by the Australasian Antarctic 

 Expedition, which also revised and extended to the east and to the 

 west the coast line of Adelie Land as placed on the map by Admirals 

 Dumont d'Urville and Wilkes. The formerly charted Clarie Land was 

 found to have no existence. It is assumed that what was mapped 

 was either a gigantic iceberg or an ice tongue extending from the land 

 existing farther to the south. To the south and west of that locality 

 the Australasian Antarctic Expedition found high land which was 

 placed on the map under the title of Wilkes Land,^ in honor of Admiral 

 Wilkes who, long prior to that time, had reported distant land at 

 intervals in the Australasian sector. 



- For details refer to H. R. Mill: The Siege of the South Pole, London, 1905. 



3 In this sense Wilkes Land extends through about four degrees of longitude (i3i°-i3S° E.). 

 This contrasts with the use of the term as applying to a stretch of coast extending through about sixty- 

 five degrees of longitude (95°-i6o° E.) and comprising the range of discoveries of (then) Lieutenant 

 Charles Wilkes, U. S. N., in 1840, which he himself interpreted and announced as constituting the 

 margin of the Antarctic Continent. Although some of his landfalls, especially toward the east, have 

 proved to be non-existent and although it is probable that he sometimes mistook for land the northern 

 edge of the shelf ice and the solid pack with icebergs embedded in it, it is indisputable that he first out- 

 lined in their continuity, and recognized as such, the phenomena of a continental margin for a distance 

 of 1800 miles. 



On the nomenclature controversy see, inter alia, E. S. Balch: Antarctica, Philadelphia, 1902, Ch. 

 2; idem: Wilkes Land, Bull. Amer. Geogr. Soc, Vol. 38, 1906, pp. 30-32; A. W. Greely: American Dis- 

 coverers of the Antarctic Continent, Nail. Geogr. Mag., Vol. 23, 1912, pp. 298-312; J. E. Pillsbury: 

 Wilkes' and D'Urville's Discoveries in Wilkes Land, ibid., Vol. 21, 1910, pp. 171-173. — Edit. Note. 



