HISTORY OF DISCOVERY. Q\ 



out to be an island, which was named Adelaide Island. 

 Its situation was determined to be latitude 67° 15' S. and 

 longitude 68° 20' W., and the explorations of the follow- 

 ing: weeks showed that it was one of an island chain 

 scattered in the direction from E.N.E. to W.S.W., the 

 outpost of elevated land which has been called Graham's 

 Land, while the islands were subsequently called Biscoe 

 Islands. After Biscoe had landed farther north on the 

 west coast of Palmer Land, he turned to the South 

 Shetland Islands where he barely escaped shipwreck, 

 thence to the Falkland Islands, and then home to Eng- 

 land. While in the Falkland Islands the two vessels 

 parted company, and it was not till Biscoe reached St. 

 Caterina in Brazil that he heard the news of the ship- 

 wreck of the cutter in the Falkland Isles, though happily 

 the crew had been saved. 



Biscoe's voyage, is frequently overlooked, though un- 

 justly, for in reality his efforts and his results, ev r en if he 

 did not push forward to so high a latitude as Weddell, 

 have a greater value than Weddell's advance to the south. 

 Biscoe completed a circumnavigation of the pole, for the 

 greater part in high latitudes ; he succeeded in this with 

 two insignificant little vessels, augmenting considerably 

 beyond any predecessor our acquaintance with the dis- 

 tribution of land in the Antarctic regions. He not only 

 indicated, partly by discovery, partly by well-founded 

 conjecture, the existence of land to the south of the 

 Indian Ocean, but discovered the most extensive coast 

 known previous to the discoveries of Wilkes and 

 D'Urville, probably the connecting link between Dirk 

 Gerritz Archipelago and Alexander I. Land. Biscoe's 

 achievements met with generous recognition in Europe at 

 the time, and the Geographical Societies of London and 

 Paris conferred high distinctions on him. Messrs. 

 Enderby's firm immediately placed two other ships at 

 his disposal, to enable him to complete his investigations, 



