32 THE ANTARCTIC. 



equally fruitless course north in order to escape into open 

 water. Now, however disappointing this voyage proved 

 in general, and however futile in regard of its principal 

 object, it must be conceded to brave Captain Bouvet 

 that he was the first to sail a considerable distance east— 

 8°-io° — south of the course of the great navigator, Tas- 

 man, and therefore he has a claim to be regarded as the 

 pioneer of Antarctic exploration. 



Bouvet's discovery was fated to bring important results 

 in its train as far as both the French and the English 

 were concerned, in spite of the repelling aspect of the 

 newly discovered country and of the seas surrounding it. 

 These results, however, waited silently in the background 

 for thirty years, and in the middle of that period (1756) the 

 island of South Georgia was discovered for the second or 

 the third time, in the middle of winter, on the 29th of June. 

 This time the discovery was made by a Spanish merchant 

 vessel, the Leon, which sailed completely round the island 

 in the south, and named it after the saint's day, " Isla de 

 San Pedro ". 



The discovery, however, was not immediately followed 

 up, although it became known through the French ac- 

 count published by Ducloz Guyot, who was on board the 

 Leon at the time. This account was incorporated in the 

 writings and compilations of the eminent English tra- 

 veller and geographer, Alexander Dalrymple, in a work 

 published in 1770 on the subject of oceanic travels and 

 discoveries. As it came out before Cook's return from 

 his first famous voyage, he was probably acquainted 

 with this last discovery of South Georgia. 



After a brief lull in the progress of Antarctic dis- 

 covery, a new period of activity set in during the seventies 

 of last century. The times had greatly changed, natural 

 science especially had received a new impetus, and a 

 desire had become manifest to deepen as well as to 

 widen our then knowledge of the earth as a whole. A 



