Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Cook claimed the territory for Great Britain, and named it after King George III. Cook's
voyages on board
HMS Adventure
and
HMS Resolution
aimed to survey and investigate the
Southern Ocean. During the second voyage of 1773, Captain Cook and his crew crossed the
Antarctic Circle and came within only 70 nautical miles of the Antarctic coastline, but were
forced to turn around when confronted with unrelenting sea ice.
Cook's Second Expedition of 1772-5 was instrumental in accelerating exploration, and his
report published in 1777,
A Voyage towards the South Pole
, revealed his geographical
ambition. Venturing into the ice-filled Southern Ocean was not for the faint-hearted:
Thick fogs. Snow storms. Intense cold and every other thing that can render navigation
dangerous, one has to encounter and these difficulties are greatly heightened by the
inexpressible horrid aspect of the country, a country doomed by nature never once to feel
the warmth of the sunrays, but to lie for ever buried under everlasting snow and ice.
However, his observations about an abundant number of seals and whales played their part,
perhaps unintentionally, in representing the Antarctic not as 'doomed nature' but as
'plentiful nature'. This was to prove significant in triggering further discovery and
exploitation of the Antarctic, and highlighted the importance of explorers, scientists, and
sailors in bringing back their stories and images of this remote land to domestic audiences.
Antarctic sightings
The first generally recognized sighting of Antarctic land occurred in the 1820s. Three
individuals and their ships have been credited with this particular geographical 'first',
although the islands of South Shetland and the Antarctic Peninsula are likely to have been
discovered earlier by anonymous sealers. During the boom years of seal hunting,
geographical knowledge was commercially sensitive and not for free exchange. It is widely
accepted that the actual accolade belongs to the Estonian-born Fabian von Bellingshausen,
who reported land on 27 January 1820. His expedition, involving the ships
Vostok
and
Mirnyy
, circumnavigated the polar continent, and charted the ice shelf in the northerly
portion of the Antarctic Peninsula. The Irish-born Edward Bransfield's sighting, on 30
January 1820, of what was termed 'Trinity Peninsula' encouraged further reported sightings
by sealers, including one Nathaniel Palmer and on his voyage in and around November
1820. It is sometimes claimed that another American sealer, John Davis, was the first to land
on the polar continent in February 1821, but this is a matter of dispute amongst polar
historians. The competing claims to priority have long been resources for nationalists, and
continue to inform positions of the United Kingdom, United States, and Russia in relation to
territorial sovereignty in the Antarctic to this day.
