576 



HISTORY OF THE SEA. 



that part' of the Antarctic continent supposed to lie to the south 

 of New Holland, and to make researches and surveys of im- 

 portance to ships navigating the Polynesian seas. The squadron 

 was absent four years, and accomplished a vast amount of 

 arduous labor interesting to science and invaluable to com- 

 merce. We propose to speak only of what became afterwards 

 its prominent feature, — the supposed discovery of an Antarctic 

 continent. 



On the 15th of February, 1840, land was seen in longitude 

 106° 40' E. and latitude 65° 57' S. The next day the ships 

 were within seven miles of it, and, " by measurement, the extent 

 of the coast of the Antarctic continent then in sight was made 

 seventy-five miles." The men landed on an ice-island, where they 

 found stones, boulders, gravel, sand, and clay. Everybody wished 

 to possess a piece of the Antarctic continent ; and many frag- 

 ments of red sandstone and basalt were carried away. The island 

 was believed to have been detached from the neighboring land. 

 Subsequent voyages, however, have thrown great doubts upon 

 the accuracy of these assertions. James Clarke Ross, who was 

 sent with the Erebus and Terror, in 1839, to the South Pole, 

 was informed at Van Diemen's Land of Wilkes' alleged dis- 

 covery. He reached the spot in January, 1841, and, instead of 

 an Antarctic continent, found water five hundred fathoms deep. 

 The existence of such a continent, therefore, must be regarded 

 as altogether hypothetical. "It is natural," says the London 

 Athenaeum, "that a commander of his country's first scientific 

 expedition should wish to make the most of it ; but Science is 

 so august in her nature and so severe in her rules that she de- 

 clines recording in her archives any sentence as truth on which 

 there rests the slightest liability of doubt : in all such cases she 

 prefers the Scotch verdict, — 'Not proven.' " 



Though at this period the discovery of a Northwest Passage 

 — if one existed — was no longer expected to afford a short and 

 commodious commercial route to the Indies and to China, y%t 



