AMERICAN SEALERS 
95 
only method of seal-hunting resorted to on the islands of 
South Georgia and the coasts of South America so that 
the first in the field at a new sealing ground was sure of 
an immense booty, and late-comers as likely as not would 
have to go empty away. Smith was determined that he 
would not part with his secret without an equivalent to 
anyone but a British subject and absolutely refused to 
give the American inquirers the information they wanted. 
He offered to take them to the southern land for a seal- 
ing voyage and if he could not find it to charge nothing 
for the use of his vessel, but that remarkably liberal offer 
was rejected; the inquirers wanted chiefly to know exactly 
where the land lay. Several months elapsed before he 
could get a cargo together for another trip to Chile. At 
last he succeeded and on October 15th, 1819, came up with 
the land in the position where he had seen it before, got 
soundings in 40 fathoms and next day sent a boat ashore 
with the first mate to plant the Union Jack and take pos- 
session for Great Britain. He called the new land New 
South Britain but afterwards changed the name to New 
South Shetland because it was situated in the same lati- 
tude as the Shetland Isles of the northern hemisphere. 
The name did not imply any opinion as to the insular 
nature of the new land to part of which he refers as the 
mainland, and the name of Antarctic Continent was even 
revived for it by some German geographers when the 
discovery became known in Europe in the following 
year. 
Smith spent some days in cruising along the coast, 
standing out to sea at night and returning in the morn- 
ing toward the land, picking out now a cape and now a 
mountain in the fog and naming them more or less ap- 
propriately, occasionally losing sight of the coast, and ap- 
