22 THE ANTARCTIC. 



1599, at a time when the Dutch, acting on the offensive, 

 began to attack and injure Spain in her colonies, a Dutch 

 squadron of five sail, under the command of Jacob Mahn 

 and Simon de Cordes, left Holland to attack the Spanish 

 possessions on the Pacific. They were overtaken by the 

 same fate as Drake, for on passing out of the Straits of 

 Magellan on the west side they were dispersed by a 

 violent storm on the 15th of September. One of the 

 vessels, the yacht De Blyde Boodschap, under the 

 command of Dirk (Theodoric) Gerritz, was driven as 

 far as 64° S., where Gerritz sighted land. It was covered 

 with lofty, snow-clad mountains which he compared to 

 those of Norway. Without following up his discovery 

 Gerritz again took a northern course to the coast of 

 Chili, but missed the rendezvous of the squadron and 

 was made captive by the Spaniards. In a letter to 

 Olivier van Noort, the commander of a second Dutch 

 squadron, he communicated his discovery, concerning 

 which nothing more was heard. It has elsewhere been 

 shown that although many circumstances seem to tell 

 against the attaining of such a high latitude, there is no 

 reason whatever to doubt Gerritz' veracity. It might 

 be opposed on the ground that at the beginning of 

 summer in the southern hemisphere the land is blocked 

 by ice in latitude 64° to the south of Tierra del Fuego, 

 that is to say, the western isles of the South Shetland 

 Archipelago or Palmer Land. But as Gerritz came in 

 sight of land in the second, third, or even the fourth 

 quarter of September, for he reckoned by the old Julian 

 calendar, the date of his discovery would doubtless be 

 between the beginning and the middle of October. Now 

 W. Smith, the second discoverer of the Gerritz Archi- 

 pelago — as it has now been called — found it possible to 

 approach the South Shetland Islands at that time of 

 year, in 18 19, without being at all inconvenienced by the 

 ice. The advance in both cases seems to have been 



