BELLINGSHAUSEN 
“9 
full success of his voyage imperilled; and in the hope 
even at the eleventh hour of filling the vacancies he ob- 
tained an introduction to the President of the Royal So- 
ciety, the venerable Sir Joseph Banks, the old friend and 
companion of Captain James Cook. 
All the enquiries were unavailing and the Russians re- 
turned to Portsmouth, whence after having completed 
their stores and waiting, hoping against hope for natural- 
ists to be found the ships set sail on September 5th. They 
touched at Tenerife and Rio de Janeiro, meeting the Rus- 
sian Arctic expedition outward bound at the latter port, 
and then a straight run down the South Atlantic brought 
South Georgia into sight on December 27th. Two Brit- 
ish sealing vessels were found at work here; a run- 
ning survey was made of the south coast to supplement 
Cook’s work on the north, and two small off-lying islets 
were given Russian names. Half way to the South 
Sandwich Islands a sounding was made in 260 fathoms 
with no bottom, and a temperature observation at that 
depth gave 31. 8° F. 
The first ice-island was met in 56° S. towering out of 
the water for 180 feet and alive with penguins. The 
Russian sailors gazed with amazement at a sight soon 
to become the most familiar of every day appearances. 
Whales were observed in great numbers, and albatrosses 
escorted the ships on their way to the south. The first 
discovery was made on January 3rd, 1820, when a group 
of three small islands was descried a short distance to 
the north of the Sandwich group. It was appropriately 
named after the Russian Minister of Marine, Baron de 
Traversey. One of the islands named after Savadoffski, 
the first officer of the Vostok, was an active volcano rising 
into a fantastic summit and emitting thick clouds of 
