256 POLAR PROBLEMS 



Charcot carried his discoveries well south on the Pacific Ocean 

 side to Charcot Land. From the latter to King Edward VII Land 

 is the greatest blank space on the map. In this region the soundings 

 made by Gerlache and Charcot show that land surely exists in the 

 ice-clad region south of the limits to which they penetrated. There 

 seems no reason to doubt that it continues till it joins with King 

 Edward VII Land. It is notable that in the vicinity of about 107° W. 

 longitude Cook reached to beyond 71° S. latitude in open sea, and this 

 performance was repeated about 135 years later by the Pourquoi-Pas? 

 expedition. The existence of open water as a permanent feature of 

 that locality suggests high land to the south and southeast, for thereby 

 would be furnished a wind shed which would clear the neighboring 

 seas of pack ice. 



The unknown region lying north and northeast of King Edward 

 VII Land is likely to be an area either of land or of heavy pack or shelf 

 ice held together by scattered islands or bergs aground in shoal water. 



Before leaving this brief review of what is known and what is 

 not known of the margin of the Antarctic Continent reference should 

 be made to a statement written by Captain Benjamin Morrell of 

 Stonington, Conn., who was connected with sealing ventures early in 

 the last century. On February i, 1823, he gives his ship's position as 

 64° 52' S. latitude and 118° 27' E. longitude.^ He reports that the ship 

 was then steered west and to the southward until "we crossed the 

 antarctic circle [italics are Morrell's] and were in lat. 69° 11' S., long. 

 48° 15' E. " In this location he reports no field ice and very few "ice- 

 islands" in sight. He then intimates that he sailed west on that lati- 

 tude until well into the Weddell Sea. Though Morrell's veracity has 

 long been in question, it was not until the examination by the Aus- 

 tralasian Antarctic Expedition of the segment between the 11 8th 

 degree of east longitude and Gaussberg that very definite proof was 

 forthcoming of the impossibility of Morrell's statement. Judging by 

 the latter his ability as a navigator must have been of a very unusual 

 order, for, according to the course run on that westerly voyage, he 

 passed unhindered over shelf-ice formations and high land. This is 

 mentioned to explain why Morrell's reports have not been taken into 

 account in the preceding summary. 



Possible Existence of Undiscovered Sub-Antarctic Islands 



Apart from the undertaking thus far considered, namely the chart- 

 ing of the coast line of the Antarctic continental mass and neighboring 

 off-lying islands of continental character, there is still the possibility 

 of the existence and discovery of additional oceanic islands in the more 



' Benjamin Morrell, Jr.: A Narrative of Four Voyages to the South Sea, North and South Pacific 

 Ocean, Chinese Sea, Ethiopic and Southern Atlantic Ocean, Indian and Antarctic Ocean, from the 

 • Year 1822 to 1831, New York, 1832, p. 65. 



