HISTORY OF DISCO VERY. gi 



of the greater number of icebergs, and it was not till the 

 ioth of February that he again crossed parallel 65 in 

 longitude iio° 54' E. On the next day, and subse- 

 quently, numerous icebergs, with ddbris of rock and stone, 

 were observed, but land itself did not again come in 

 sight. Ringgold kept his course along the edge of the 

 pack-ice up to the 14th of February, when he found himself 

 on meridian ioo° E. ; then in latitude 63° S. approximately 

 he again steered east, and once more attempted to push 

 forward south on the 21st of February in longitude 121° 

 30' E., but without any result beyond that of penetrating 

 to latitude 65° 15' S. At length he too left the inhospi- 

 table and stormy regions of Wilkes Land and returned 

 to Sydney, seeing his last iceberg as far north as latitude 

 55 S. and longitude 140° E. 



The results of this expedition are of great value, even 

 after all allowance has been made for the achievements 

 of Balleny and Dumont d'Urville. A succession of more 

 or less connected groups of land had been seen — though 

 it was premature to regard them as an Antarctic continent 

 — over an extent which exceeds the length of the Ural 

 Mountains, if moderately estimated at nearly 1,500 miles, 

 and equals the length of the west coast of Greenland, 

 from Cape Farewell to Upernivik. Those who are of 

 opinion that only small scattered islands were seen, must 

 not forget that Wilkes was greatly harassed by fogs and 

 storms, that land could be seen only in really good 

 weather, and that, given continuous fine weather and a 

 clear sky, Wilkes would certainly have discovered more. 

 In any event it is a mistake to regard the discoveries of 

 Wilkes as apocryphal, as was done by Ross, or to omit 

 placing them on the chart. The discoveries made a 

 year previously by Balleny, and those simultaneously 

 made by Dumont d'Urville, are telling proofs that the 

 land seen by Wilkes was an actual fact. 



Before the expeditions described had set out for the 



