I 4 2 siege of the south pole 
years, 1820-22, at least seven sealing vessels were 
wrecked on the South Shetlands, and the crew of one of 
them was compelled to winter there in great destitution 
and misery. 
When the land was so difficult of access except in the 
middle of the short summer, and the weather even during 
those few weeks so capricious and foggy, it is not sur- 
prising that very vague ideas prevailed as to the geog- 
raphy of the region to the south of the South Shetland 
Islands. That a large mass of land existed there was 
clearly understood. Fanning spoke of the “ continent 
of Palmer’s Land,” which he believed did not extend 
farther than ioo° W. longitude. Morrell spoke of the east 
coast of the land which Captain Johnson had named 
“ New South Greenland/’ and Fanning states explicitly 
that this was Palmer Land, the first knowledge of which 
he had himself communicated to Johnson. Weddell in 
his track-chart sketches a vague “ Trinity Land,” but in 
a theoretical sketch-map of the circumpolar region he 
lays down a large mass of land south of the South Shet- 
land Islands and gives to it the name of “ South Shet- 
land.” 
All that befell Weddell after his return we do not 
know, apparently he made other voyages to the south as 
a sealer. He was certainly absent from England in 
1831 to 1833, and he died in London in the forty-seventh 
year of his age on 9th October, 1834. When Cap- 
tain Biscoe reached Plobart Town in May, 1831, and 
again when he left it in October of the same year, he 
mentions a Captain Weddell as being there in .command 
of the cutter Eliza, and there seems no reason to doubt 
that this was the hero of the voyage to 74 0 S. 
Although Bouvet Island can no longer claim to be a 
