1909.] RE-EXPLORE WILKES LAND. 35 



countrymen. Under these circumstances, why should others think 

 of them? And yet America's record in the Antarctic is a brilliant 

 one, indeeed the most brilliant of any nation! 



It has taken the writer years of hard work, studying records 

 and maps, and ransacking libraries and archives in America and 

 Europe, to gradually work out the evolution of the discovery of 

 the Antarctic regions. Beginning with a letter to The Nation^ in 

 answer to Sir C. R. Markham, following this with a long paper 

 "Antarctica, a History of Antarctic Discovery,"^ then again with 

 a longer book "Antarctica,"* and another paper "Antarctica 

 Addenda,"^ it has proved necessary to supplement this with still 

 another one, " Stonington Antarctic Explorers,"'' and even yet the 

 history is incomplete. 



It soon became apparent, while working up the various records, 

 that the nomenclature of the Antarctic regions was in a state of 

 hopeless confusion. In many cases the names originally given by 

 the discoverers had been superseded by names given by later trav- 

 elers. Such was the case with the " Powell Islands " justly so called 

 and so first charted after their discoverer, the English sealer George 

 Powell, which was superseded by the meaningless name " The South 

 Orkneys." The name " Palmer Land " wandered all over the map, 

 according to the fancy of the map maker. The name " Graham 

 Land," belonging to a small stretch of coast, was often applied 

 to the whole massif of known lands in the western Antarctic. This 

 arose from a curious cause. Graham Land lies some four degrees 

 south of the Shetlands, and on Mercator charts, owing to the enor- 

 mous relative increase in size for every degreee of latitude south, 

 Graham Land swelled to inordinate dimensions, and the name was 

 printed in giant letters, which pushed it into an unwarranted 

 prominence. 



The most curious thing of all was that there was no generic 

 name by which to distinguish the lands which could be reached from 

 South America, from those which could be reached from Australia. 



*May 10, igoo. 



^Journal of the Franklin Institute, igoi, Vol. CLL and Vol. CLIL . 



* Philadelphia, Allen, Lane and Scott, 1902. 



^Journal of the Franklin Institute, February, 1904. 



' Not yet published. 



