Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
was only to change in the 1890s when fresh appeals were made for a new round of
exploration. The 1895 International Geographical Congress in London was a pivotal event,
as geographers and cartographers appealed for fresh information about one of the world's
remaining blank spaces. It was 'the greatest piece of geographical exploration still to be
undertaken'. John Murray, the noted cartographer, put the appeal in the following terms in
1899:
I always feel a little bit of shame that civilized man, living on his little planet - a very small
globe - should, in this nineteenth century of the Christian era, not yet have fully explored
the whole of this little area; it seems a reproach upon the enterprise, civilization, and
condition of knowledge of the human race.
The resource value of the Antarctic also played a part in stimulating this swelling of interest
in what Joseph Conrad termed a more 'militant geography'. Over-exploitation of Fur Seals,
which led to the 1893 Bering Sea arbitration and the decline of the Greenland whale fishery,
focused attention on the Antarctic. At the moment when Frederick Jackson Turner was
appealing for Americans to 'close' the American frontier, a coterie of explorers and
exploiters descended on the Antarctic. Seven major expeditions were organized within the
period between 1898 and the 1910s involving a multi-national cast of characters and
sponsors. These included: the Belgian Antarctic Expedition (1897-9), the British Antarctic
Expedition (1898-1900), the German Antarctic Expedition (1901-3), the first expedition by
Captain Robert Scott (the British National Antarctic Expedition, 1901-4), the Swedish Polar
Expedition (1901-4), and the Scottish National Antarctic Expedition (1902-4) led by
William S. Bruce. The net result of this extraordinary burst of endeavour was to ensure that
European and North American men were exploring ever-greater expanses of the polar
continent and surrounding seas, and that Antarctica would become integrated in the Western
imperial economic system through whaling and meteorological observations, to give just
two of the most prominent examples.
Both public and private funding played critical roles in the so-called 'Heroic Age'
(1898-1916) of Antarctic exploration. Some of the most notable explorers, such as the
Anglo-Irish explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton, were privately funded (even if his initial
experience came from being a participant of the Discovery Expedition in 1901-4). Sent
home early from the Discovery Expedition due to ill healem; text-indent: 0.01em; roould be
th, Shackleton led the Nimrod Expedition (1907-9), funded by the Scottish industrialist Sir
William Beardmore, and in January 1909, he and his three companions trekked across the
polar continent and reached the furthest southerly point thus far achieved. At latitude 88°S,
they were approximately 110 miles from the South Pole (the publicly disseminated figure of
97 miles was judged to have more of a dramatic ring to it). They also made the first ascent
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