ANTAECTIC EXPLORATION. 



13 



Wilkes, were attracted to these waters in the hope of here fixing the exact position 

 of the south magnetic pole. They again visited the seas explored by Balleny, 

 and both unhesitatingly asserted that they sighted true land, and not merely 

 continuous bands of floating ice. D'Urville gave the name of Adelia to the 

 rugged coast from 3,000 to 4,000 feet high, which he observed to the south and 

 followed westwards across some ten degrees of the meridian, without, however, 

 landing at any point. Farther west Wilkes also sighted land in four places, and 



Fig. 6.— EXPLOEATIOXS IN THE SoUTH PoLAE WaTEES. 

 Scale 1 ; 100,000,000. 



Supposed Continent. 



1,200 Miles. 



all the elevated ground, whether scattered islands or continuous land, has received 

 the general designation of W^ilkes Land. 



Nevertheless James Ross, who followed a different track, threw some doubts 

 on the reports of the three navigators who had followed each other in this oceanic 

 region. Nothing, in fact, is more deceptive than the hazy horizons of these 

 southern waters, where the rays of a low sun are refracted on the ice, and where 

 the most practised eye is needed to distinguish between a real rocky era»- and a 

 "crystalline mountain detached from some distant glacier." Except at one point, 



