4 o SIEGE OF THE SOUTH POLE 
the speculative cartographers another point in the coast 
line of their illusive land. 
The only result so far as the search for the South Land 
was concerned was to warn intending discoverers that 
there was no prospect of success to the south of South 
America. Cowley indeed draws a quaint moral of his 
own, for the storm struck his ships while the men were 
“ chusing of Valentines and discoursing on the Intrigues 
of Women ” one 14th of February, “ so that we concluded 
the discoursing of women at sea was very unlucky and 
caused the storm.” 
The seventeenth century closed with the belief in a 
Terra Australis Incognita undiminished by the very sub- 
stantial increase of the known world in the southern 
hemisphere; but it closed with the first special expedi- 
tion to investigate a purely scientific problem. 
How the question was approached by the scholars 
of the day, and to what extent their knowledge went, may 
be judged by two extracts from the learned Dr. Nathanael 
Carpenter in his “ Geographie,” second edition, published 
in 1635. The first illustrates the way in which such 
scholars played with ideas: 
“ It hath beene a usuall kinde of speech amongst men 
to tearme such things as are stronger, worthier or greater. 
Masculine ; on the contrary side such things Feminine 
as are found deficient or wanting in these perfections ; by 
which kinde of Metaphor taken from the Sexes in liv- 
ing creatures they have ascribed to the Northerne Hemi- 
spheare a Masculine Temper in respect of the Southerne, 
which comes farre short of it.” 
The second quotation is a good summary of known 
facts and a typically English view of foreign character: 
“ Of the third and greatest, which is the South Con- 
