ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH 



Wilkes was badly handicapped by crippled ships and 

 the ill-health of his crew, but he stoutly held on to 

 westward, and after longitude 137° E. again sailed 

 along the land for sixty miles to the w^st. In longi- 

 tude 131° 40' he sighted and named Cape Carr on the 

 seventh, and on the tenth and twelfth he determined 

 the land to lie in about 65° 20' of latitude. On the 

 thirteenth the day was very clear, and he could see 

 seventy-five miles of the coastline. Alany rock speci- 

 mens embedded in the ice were obtained here. In 

 longitude 97° 37' the ice cut off his progress to west- 

 ward. He had come up against the Shackleton Ice 

 Shelf (see Mawson's expedition), and so he turned 

 northward and sailed to Tasmania (see Figure 25). 



Thus closed a very memorable Antarctic voyage, 

 concerning which there has been considerable con- 

 troversy. It has been claimed that Wilkes discovered 

 land on January 13th and i6th and therefore antedated 

 D'Urville's discovery of January 19th. But in the 

 light of later voyages in these regions it seems very 

 doubtful if any of his observations before January 

 23rd concerned the mainland, though as stated he may 

 have seen an island which has since escaped notice. 

 Thus D'Urville has priority by four days. On the 

 other hand, Wilkes' fine voyage with ill-found ships 

 apparently along the coast most of the way from longi- 

 tude 148° E. to 108° E. is an achievement which has 

 not yet been repeated. Certainly no other ship has 

 cruised in that latitude from Adelie Land past North, 

 Sabrina, Budd, and Knox lands, for Wilkes was 

 favored by an unusually open state of the sea. As to 



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