Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
Filling in the Spaces
With the conclusion of Byrd's Second Antarctic Expedition, the full extent of the
Transantarctic Mountains out to the Horlick Mountains had been discovered. To be sure,
broad portions of the map remained blank on the plateau side of the mountains, a gap
existed between Beardmore and Liv Glaciers, and the distal termination was vague and
uncertain, but explorers had mapped the Transantarctic Mountains for fifteen hundred
miles from North Cape to the Horlick Mountains, and had made crossings to the plateau
at six locations: David Glacier, Ferrar Glacier, Beardmore Glacier, Liv Glacier, Axel Hei-
berg Glacier, and Scott Glacier. Subsequent comers to this once virgin land would largely
be filling in the gaps.
The exploration of Antarctica during the first third of the twentieth century was
primarily funded from such private sources as learned societies, wealthy donors, or con-
tributions from the public at large. Nevertheless, national interests were also at play on
many levels. Gould's claim of Marie Byrd Land (lodged in the cairn at Supporting Party
Mountain) was only one of many left by private expeditions in the name of the United
States of America. Claims and flags were dropped from the air by Byrd, as well as Hubert
Wilkens and Lincoln Ellsworth, during their series of airborne expeditions to the Ant-
arctic Peninsula and West Antarctica in the late 1920s and 1930s. While the government
did not publicly press these claims, behind closed doors it grappled with the issue. Great
Britain, New Zealand, France, and Australia made formal claims to portions of Antarc-
tica between 1908 and 1933 based largely on discovery. Norway followed suit in 1939, in
response to German activity in an area that their whalers had hunted. In positioning itself
to assert its own claims, the United States adopted a position that modern claims should
