CH. LVj 
Bruce s Voyage 
439 
Patagonia was connected by land with Graham Land, 
and spread out to a great width. At that time the warm 
coast current from Brazil would have flowed down to 
the coasts of Antarctica, causing that region to be much 
warmer than it is now. These geological facts give rise 
to alluring and not altogether impossible conjectures. 
The results of the Nordenskiold expedition were of great 
value, serving to connect, as they do, the Andes with the 
Antarctic mountain range of Graham Land, and perhaps 
with a continuous range further south. The expedition 
was without comparison the most important of all the 
private enterprises which have undertaken discoveries in 
the far south in recent years, except of course the great 
expeditions of Captain Scott 1 . 
Bruce 
The expedition under Mr Bruce was for a very short 
time south of the Antarctic circle, most of its two years 
and a half duration being devoted to scientific investiga- 
tions in two islands of the South Orkneys. 
Mr Bruce was a natural history student. In that 
capacity, in 1893, he made a voyage to the south in one 
of the whalers, the Balaena, Captain Robertson. From 
1894-96 he was at the meteorological station on the 
summit of Ben Nevis, and in 1896-97 he served under 
Jackson during his last winter in Franz Josef Land. 
Haying received a promise of support from Mr James and 
Major Andrew Coats, wealthy manufacturers at Paisley, 
he went to Norway and bought an old vessel of 400 tons 
called the Hecla, which required much repair. Captain 
Robertson was master of the ship, which was re-named the 
Scotia, and there was a scientific staff. The main object 
appears to have been deep sea sounding. The Scotia sailed 
on the 2nd November 1902, and in the first year she crossed 
the Antarctic Circle, went south as far as 70 0 25', and 
then returned to winter at the South Orkneys. 
The two islands of the South Orkneys, called Laurie 
and Coronation, were discovered by a sealing captain 
named Powell in the Dove in 1821. They had been 
1 Antarctica, or Two Years amongst the Ice of the South Pole, by Dr Otto 
Nordenskiold and Dr Gunnar Andersson, 1905. 
On the Geology of Graham Land, by Dr Gunnar Andersson. (Uppsala 
1906.) 
