THE TWENTIETH CENTURY 425 
16th, 1901, visited Falmouth and then proceeded to the 
South Shetlands, calling at Port Stanley in the Falklands 
and at Staten Island. A young lieutenant in the Ar- 
gentine navy had joined the party, and the Government 
of the Argentine Republic had previously undertaken to 
establish an important magnetic and meteorological ob- 
servatory near Cape Horn. 
The first island of the South Shetland group was 
sighted on January ioth, 1902, and after running down 
the west coast of Louis Philippe Land and proving that 
Orleans Channel did not extend through to Weddell Sea 
as D’Urville had supposed, but was merely a part of Ger- 
lache Strait, the Antarctic proceeded to Weddell Sea, 
and tried to get south along the coast of King Oscar II. 
Land. The ice however was unfavourable, the ship 
could not get near the coast, nor could she penetrate quite 
as far as the Antarctic circle. On the way back Nor- 
denskjold, accompanied by three members of the scien- 
tific staff and two sailors, landed on February 12th on 
Snow Hill Island in 64° 25' S. with material for estab- 
lishing a winter house. The ship went north to carry on 
researches in the open sea and return in the following 
spring, and the leader saw her no more. The winter of 
1902 was spent at this station, and several opportunities 
for long sledge journeys with dogs were found. The 
chief journey southward traversed the broad, flat belt of 
ice attached to the shore of King Oscar II. Land, through 
which the Seal Islands rise as nunataks. This ice was 
compared by Nordenskjold to the great Southern Barrier 
of Ross, though of course on a small scale, and he was 
of opinion that it was formed in situ by the freezing of 
sea water and the accumulation of snow. The winter 
was characterised by terrible weather, a combination of 
