28 THE ANTARCTIC. 



of South Georgia and Willis Island lying outside. The 

 only discrepancy is the breadth of the strait between the 

 two — a matter of only six or seven nautical miles. The 

 northernmost of the South Sandwich Islands might occur 

 to one, although the description applies far better to 

 South Georgia. The error in the latitude would be 

 equally great in either case, as the north-western end of 

 South Georgia and Willis Island are situated in latitude 

 54 S., and the most northern of the South Sandwich 

 Isles in latitude 5 6^-° S. 



For sixty-two years this remained the latest discovery 

 in Antarctic regions, while latitude 6o° S. was now 

 more frequently crossed, and the first accounts occur of 

 meeting with floating ice in southern waters. It seems 

 strange that there are no earlier references to it, for the 

 region of floating ice was entered in rounding Cape 

 Hoorn. It is an equally strange fact that icebergs do 

 not seem to have been mentioned by earlier travellers, 

 not even by Abel Tasman. Many noteworthy voyages 

 were made by daring pirates, who, under the name of 

 buccaneers and filibusters, attacked the Spanish-American 

 possessions, both on the Atlantic and South Sea coasts. 

 Thus Bartholomew Sharp in 1681 reached 6o° S. after 

 previously encountering icebergs, likewise the e'lite of 

 buccaneer society — at least those of English origin — 

 when John Cook led William Dampier, Edward Davis, 

 Lionel W T afer, Ambrose Cowley and others with the ship 

 Revenge, west of Cape Hoorn, as far as 6o° 31' S. on 

 the way to the Pacific provinces of south Spain. Part 

 of the company returned under Edward Davis after it 

 was broken up, and after he had discovered Easter Island 

 he reached a latitude of 62° 45 S. in the Atlantic, on 

 which occasion a large number of icebergs was observed. 

 Easter Island naturally offered the cartographers a wel- 

 come opportunity for again laying down a portion of 

 the great southern continent, and it figured on the maps, 



