CHARLES WILKES 
247 
the land in question did not correspond to the position 
of Balleny’s discovery, and that it represented a range 
of mountains in the position in which they were reported 
by Ringgold and not five small islands. He stated also 
that Wilkes had seen an exact account of Balleny’s dis- 
covery in the Athcnceum on his return to Sydney, and had 
ejaculated on seeing it, “ Then all our labour has been 
in vain.” He therefore suggested that Ringgold’s ap- 
pearance of land may have been laid down on Wilkes’s 
chart and erased from the original after the tracing had 
been taken. To this Wilkes replied that the position 
marked on his chart by Biscoe as Balleny’s discovery 
was all the information on the subject that he received 
before writing his letter, and that the extent of moun- 
tainous land shown on Ross’s copy of his tracing was 
far greater than appeared on the original. Wilkes was 
by no means perfect and committed errors of judgment; 
but we view his communication to Ross as a friendly and 
even an unselfish act. He merely carried out his instruc- 
tions in visiting the portion of the Antarctic region in 
which he discovered land, and Ross was not justified in 
including him in the censure, which D’Urville possibly 
deserved, for having tried to anticipate the work of the 
British expedition in order to reap the glory for another 
flag. On the other hand Wilkes was too ready to report 
land without proving its existence, and Scott’s track in 
1904 to the south of all the land on Wilkes’s chart east of 
the meridian of 155° E. somewhat reduces the length of 
coast-line claimed by the American expedition. We 
cannot mark on the chart the earlier cruise of Tapsell in 
the Brisk, but that would seem to restrict the coast seen 
by the American ships to land west of 143 0 E. 
Wilkes was deserving of the greatest sympathy. His 
