1909-] RE-EXPLORE WILKES LAND. 39 



Drygalski reached the extreme western end : otherwise nothing has 

 been done there since the immortal cruise of gallan Charles Wilkes. 



The doubts and slurs cast on Wilkes's discovery are another 

 paramount cause why Americans should reexplore Wilkes Land. 

 It should be looked on as a national duty to do so. It is unfortu- 

 nately necessary in this connection to speak anew of the abuse and 

 the disbelief heaped on Wilkes. The whole trouble was started 

 by Sir James Clarke Ross. Angered at being forestalled in the 

 discovery of Antarctica, Ross wrote most unfairly about Wilkes. 

 Although Ross had Wilkes's book before him, and could read there 

 the " Instructions "* directing Wilkes to go to the Antarctic, yet 

 Ross wrote as if Wilkes had no business to do so when an English 

 expedition was expected to go there the following year. Ross did 

 not go to Wilkes Land nor anywhere near it, yet he deliberately left 

 all of Wilkes's discoveries off his chart.® 



Accepting the angered fancies of Ross as facts, many writers 

 wrote disparagingly of Wilkes.^*' The most vehement of his op- 

 ponents was Sir Clement R. Markham, who, after many times 

 speaking of Wilkes as if Wilkes were utterly unreliable, finally 

 reached the stage when he thought he could simply omit all refer- 

 ence to American Antarctic explorers. Owing to his important 

 position, however, of president of the Royal Geographical Society, 

 Markham's opinions naturally carried great weight in England and 

 affected the judgment of younger men, chief among whom was Cap- 

 tain Robert F. Scott. 



Captain Scott commanded the British Antarctic expedition to 

 Victoria Land in 1901-1904. On his return northward, when in 

 about the latitude of Hudson Land, he altered his course, and sailed 

 due west for about nineteen degrees of longitude. When within 

 about fifteen or twenty miles of Wilkes's " Cape Hudson," Scott 

 turned northward and returned to Australia. He therefore did 

 not go to any part of Wilkes Land. Nevertheless he asserts with 

 the greatest emphasis in his book" that once for all he has definitely 



* " Narrative United States Exploring Expedition," Vol. i, p. xxvii. 

 °" Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic 

 Regions." See "Antarctica," by Edwin Swift Balch. 



'"See "Antarctica," by Edwin Swift Balch, pp. 169, 176-178, 211. 

 " " The Voyage of the Discovery." 



