EXPLORING ANTARCTIC SEAS 



163° E.) which has been given his name. Some weeks 

 later some one thousand five hundred miles to the west 

 he saw an appearance of land in longitude 120° E. to 

 which the name ''Sabrina Land" was given (see Fig- 

 ure 4). While this is a doubtful discovery, later voy- 

 ages by Wilkes and J. K. Davis (1911) make it likely 

 that land lies in just this position. 



Period 183 7- 1843 



The first great period of Antarctic discovery resulted 

 from the national expeditions commanded by Cook and 

 Bellingshausen. The second notable period was also 

 due to expeditions dispatched by various governments, 

 in this case France, United States, and Britain. Since 

 there was some rivalry between these three expeditions, 

 it will be well to give in tabular form a summary of 

 their voyages and discoveries. All the voyages were in 

 the southern summer, usually in January and February. 



D'Urville was sent south by Louis Philippe to ex- 

 plore the Weddell Sea and if possible to approach 

 nearer to the South Pole than previous voyagers. His 

 attempt was not very successful in this respect for he 

 only reached 63 '^ 39' S., not far south of South 

 Orkney. Then he returned to the west and sailed along 

 the coast of Graham Land. He gave the names of 

 Louis Philippe Land and Joinville Island to areas 

 which had certainly been roughly charted by Powell 

 before. However, these names have been adopted on 

 all modern maps. D'Urville devoted the next two 

 years to the exploration of the Pacific, especially to 

 the ethnology of the primitive peoples, a work which 



23 



