was accordingly crowded on the vessel, and after a hard struggle of four hours' duration they had occasion to thank Heaven for another signal deliverance. "With straining oars and bending spars They dash their icy chains asunder; And drive the sparkling fragments under!" They had now attained the latitude of 70° 14′ S., and established the impossibility of penetrating further between 90° and 105° W. The season was exhausted; the sun already declined towards the north; day dwindled to a few hours; and nothing was to be expected from moon or stars. Under these circumstances, Mr. Walker, after thanking his crew for their zealous co-operation, announced his resolution to return without delay. On the next afternoon (March 25) they descried and exchanged cheers with the United States ship Peacock. Both vessels stood northward for several days, when the Flying Fish was ordered to return to Orange Harbor, where, on the 11th of April, Lieutenant Walker gave up his command. The vessels of Wilkes's expedition consisted of the sloops-of-war Vincennes and Peacock, brig Porpoise, pilot-boat tenders Sea Gull and Flying Fish, and store-ship Relief. On the 26th of December, 1839, the Vincennes, Peacock, Porpoise, and Flying Fish turned toward the extreme south, which forbids man's approach by the savage frown of nature and the gloomy reign of death, while enticing him by the chances of discovery and renown amid her unknown wonders. Commodore Wilkes directed each vessel to act independently of her consort when arrived in the region of the designed explorations. The Flying Fish consequently parted company on the 2d, and the Peacock on the 3d of January, 1840. The Vincennes and Porpoise remained in company until the 12th. The day previous they came in sight of the solid barrier of ice in lat. 64° 11′ S., lon. 164° 13′ E. The Peacock came up with the ice on the 15th, and the Flying Fish on the 21st, both more to the westward of the former vessels. No doubt now remains of the existence of land within the Antarctic Circle. The testimony of both French and English exploring expeditions confirms the fact which it is claimed the American expedition first established as a part of geographical knowledge. This fact is determined by repeated and continuous observations made separately on board the Vincennes, Peacock, and Porpoise, and the discovery was made some days before the French expedition claim to have made the same. The American vessels coasted some sixty-five degrees of longitude along the impenetrable barrier of ice, observing throughout most of this distance highlands evidently reaching thousands of feet in altitude, and covered with perpetual snow. They met, also, other decisive signs of contiguous land. All the evidence sustains the claim that these elevated points of land are not portions of mere detached islands enclosed within a frozen sea, but are the visible parts of a vast Antarctic continent, the main extent undistinguishable from the resplendent snow fringe skirting its ocean boundary. No human beings inhabit these regions, and the representatives of any animal tribes are very few. On the 30th of January, 1840, the Porpoise discovered two vessels, which proved to be the French discovery ships under Captain D'Urville, and closed with them, passing within a short musket shot, when, says Lieutenant-Commanding Ringold, "I saw, with surprise, sail made on board the flag-ship, and, without a moment's delay, I hauled down my colors and bore up on my course." "1 On the morning of the 11th of January, 1841, says Captain Ross, "when in lat. 70° 41′ S., and lon. 172° 36′, land was discovered at the distance, as it was afterwards proved, of nearly a hundred miles, directly in the course we were steering, and therefore directly between us and the pole." "This restored to England the honor of the discovery of the southernmost known land, which had been nobly won, and for more than twenty years possessed by Russia. Continuing our course towards this land, for many hours we seemed scarcely to approach it it rose in lofty, mountainous peaks, of from nine thousand to twelve thousand feet in height, perpetually covered with eternal snow. The glaciers that descended from the mountain summit projected many miles into the ocean, and presented a perpendicular face of lofty cliffs. . . . Steering towards a promising-looking point to the south, we observed several islands, and on the morning of the 12th, accompanied by Commander Crozier and a number of the officers of each ship, I landed and took possession of the country in the name of Her Most Gracious Majesty Queen Victoria. The island on which we landed is comprised wholly of igneous rocks, numerous specimens of which, with other embedded minerals, were procured. It is in lat. 71° 56′ S., and lon. 171° 7′ E. Following a course along this magnificent land to the sea, on the 23d of January, 1841, we reached 74° 14′ S., the highest southern latitude that had ever been attained by any preceding navigator, and on the 27th again landed on an 1 Cooper's Naval History, ed. 1856, vol. iii. pp. 43, 44. island, in lat. 76° 8′ S., lon. 168° 12′ E.; and still steering to the southward, early the next morning a mountain of twelve thousand four hundred feet above the level of the sea was seen emitting flame and smoke in splendid confusion. This magnificent volcano received the name of 'Mount Erebus.' It is in lat. 77° 33′ S., and lon. 167° E. An extinct crater to the eastward of Mount Erebus, of somewhat less elevation, was called 'Mount Terror.' Finally, on the 2d of February, the two vessels reached the latitude of 78° 4' S., and on the 9th had traced the continuity of the land to lon. 191° 23′ E., in lat. 78°. This great southern land which Captain Ross traced from 70° S. to 79° S., and between the longitudes of 167° and 179° E., he named 'Victoria Land.'" 1 As it has been sneeringly said that Ross sailed over the continent discovered by Wilkes, it will be observed that Wilkes skirted along the land between the longitudes of 100° and 165° E., on a nearly east and west course, and in about the latitude of 66°, a distance of three thousand eight hundred miles of that latitude; in other words, he discovered the northern coast of the Antarctic continent, while Ross appears to have turned its eastern cape, in 172°, three hundred miles to the eastward, and run down along its eastern coast. It is strange that, while so many Arctic expeditions have been undertaken, no subsequent attempt has been made to verify or extend these discoveries. England's flag is still in advance of all others towards both poles. The little Flying Fish was sold in China, and became an opium trader and smuggler on that coast. She established the impossibility of penetrating farther south than lat. 70° between the lon. of 90° and 105° E. The first merchant vessel to carry the stars and stripes through the Straits of Magellan was the Endeavor, of Salem, Captain David Elwell, in 1824. He was living in Salem in 1868, being then eighty years old. The first vessel of war to carry our flag from the Atlantic to the Pacific through the Straits of Magellan, though many little sealing schooners under our flag had preceded her, was the United States schooner Shark, Lieutenant-Commanding A. Bigelow. She passed Cape Virgin Nov. 28, 1839, and took her departure from Cape Pillar, on the west coast, Dec. 31, 1839, commencing the new year in the Pacific, having been in the Straits thirty-three days and a half, of which two hundred and forty-eight hours were passed under way, and five hundred and twenty-five at anchor. 1 Extract from a letter from Captain Ross, dated H. M. S. Erebus, Hobart Town, Van Diemen's Land, 7th April, 1841. Antarctic Continent as seen by the U. S. Ship Peacock, January 19 P.M. io, Lat. 66 37 FOR Feak bearing Antarctic Continent as seen by the U. S. Ship Vincennes January, 297 1040, Lut, 003 S. Lang 4 les dif Autarctic Count non by the U. S. Ship Vincennes, February 11040, Lat. 0612 s. Long. * E Autoretic Conthout as seen by the U., Ship Vincennes, February 147 1849. Lat. 65° 40. Long Reduced from the Map of Wilkes's Exploring Expedition. |