AMERICAN SEALERS 113 
the field and they saw that they were in danger of losing 
the credit of making new discoveries, for a formidable 
rivalry in their sealing ventures had sprung up. J. N. 
Reynolds helped forward the cause in which he was 
keenly interested, and in the course of an address to 
Congress in 1836, he referred to the “ extensive group of 
islands lying north of the coast of Palmer’s Land, the 
extent of which neither we nor any subsequent navigators 
have as yet ascertained ; though a British vessel touched 
at a single spot in 1831, taking from it the American and 
giving it an English name.” 
8 
