INTRODUCTION 



outdistance all previous explorers towards the pole. On 

 March 3, 1898, the Belgica found herself in 71° 30' South 

 and about 85° West. An effort to return was unavailing; 

 on the 4th she was fast in the floe, unable to move in any 

 direction, and she remained a prisoner of the ice until 

 February 14, 1899, and then took another month to clear 

 all the pack and reach the open sea. For a year she 

 had been drifting north, west, south and east, in Bellings- 

 hausen Sea; even in winter the floe was never at rest, 

 and almost all the time she kept south of the parallel of 

 70° over water which shallowed from great depths in the 

 north to about two hundred and fifty fathoms in the 

 southern stretches of the drift, evidently on the sloping 

 approach to extensive land. The expedition suffered 

 greatly in health during the winter from inadequate food, 

 and from the absence of proper light in the terrible dark- 

 ness of the long night. Despite all its difficulties the 

 Belgica had done more to promote a scientific knowledge 

 of the Antarctic regions than any of the costly expeditions 

 that went before, and the Belgian Government, coming 

 to the rescue after her return, provided adequate funds 

 for working out the results. 



Bellingshausen Sea was visited again in 1904 by Dr. 

 J. B. Charcot in the Francois, which followed the route 

 of the Belgica along the coast of Graham Land, after- 

 wards wintering in Port Charcot, a harbour on Wandel 

 Island in 65° South. Returning southward in the summer 

 of 1904-5 he discovered land, named Terre Loubet, be- 

 tween Graham Land and Alexander I Land, but its exact 

 position has not been stated. This French cruise was 

 important as a preliminary to the expedition under 

 Charcot which left in 1908 and is now in those waters 

 with the intention of pushing exploration to the Farthest 

 South in a ship named with a dash of humour and a flash 

 of hope the Pourquoi Pas? 



xliv 



