HISTORY OF DISCOVERY. 13] 



be seen, the captain resolved to return, and to make for 

 Cape Adare, which was reached next day. The weather 

 was remarkably clear and glorious, the lofty summits of 

 Victoria Land, radiant in their their icy mantle, shone 

 with magic beauty in the midday and midnight sun, and 

 everywhere gigantic icebergs lay near the coast. During 

 the night of the 23rd January a party landed on a low 

 tongue of land running north from Cape Adare, the first 

 human beings to set foot on the Antarctic continent, or at 

 least the most extensive land mass of the Antarctic regions. 

 Borchgrevingk collected specimens of the stones at hand, 

 found the same lichen as on Possession Island, and then 

 returned to board the Antarctic. This was accompanied 

 with some difficulty as the ship was almost entirely out of 

 sight, and the boat was obliged to struggle for several 

 hours through the drift-ice. The Antarctic now steered 

 north, ran into the pack again on the 26th of January, in 

 latitude 69° 52' S. and longitude 169° 56' E., emerging 

 after cutting her way through for six days, and finally 

 reached Melbourne on the 4th of March, taking a good 

 catch of whales on the way. 



This voyage closes the history of Antarctic explora- 

 tion, as the results anticipated by the Belgian expedition, 

 which left Antwerp under De Gerlache in the Belgica 

 on the 1 6th of August, 1897, are not yet published. 

 This survey indicates what parts of the Antarctic 

 regions have principally been visited, and sums up how 

 much or how little has been achieved by each attempt. 

 It will be the aim of the subsequent pages to gather 

 into a whole the results of all these explorations so far 

 as their fragmentary nature renders such a task possible. 



