1 62 SIEGE OF THE SOUTH POLE 
Admiralty at the time. The troubled career of this un- 
popular statesman lives unenviably in common memory 
in England because as Home Secretary he ordered Maz- 
zini’s letters to be opened in the Post Office and communi- 
cated to the Austrian government. In Scotland his high- 
handed proceedings in connection with the ecclesiastical 
difficulties which led to the Disruption of the National 
Church in 1843 are n °t yet forgotten. 
It is not easy after the lapse of many years to under- 
stand how far the names given to portions of newly dis- 
covered coasts were intended by their sponsors to apply 
to the whole mass of land of which these coasts formed 
part of the boundary. Fanning undoubtedly under- 
stood Palmer Land to include the whole mass of land to 
the southward of the South Shetlands, and referred to 
it as a continent. Biscoe’s “mainland,” the Graham 
Land of the British charts was no doubt meant to be 
equally inclusive, and so too, was Johnson’s New South 
Greenland. Making allowance for the uncertainty of 
longitudes determined even with the utmost care by ships 
whose chronometers had not been rated for months, or 
perhaps even for years, we can easily understand the con- 
fusion wrought by the multiplication of over-lapping 
names, and this confusion was made worse confounded 
by the fact that as a rule each discoverer was ignorant of 
the work of his predecessor. As a matter of historic 
justice, it seems to us that Powell’s name of Palmer Land 
ought to be retained for the whole group of islands, and 
possible continental peninsula south of the South Shet- 
lands, Graham Land might well be restricted to the 
southern part south of Adelaide Island, and the other 
names be fixed to definite members of the group ; but to 
this subject we must return later. 
