Throughout history, geographers were haunted by the thought of a
huge green southern continent, Terra Australis Incognita, thought
necessarily to exist in order to balance the continents in the
northern extremities of the world. But not until James Cook's
second great voyage in 1773 was the myth of this continent's
existence finally laid to rest. Alan Gurney writes vividly of the
arduous journeys undertaken by British, Russian and American
expeditions to solve the mysteries of the southern continent,
beginning with Edmond Halley's astronomical expedition in 1699
(when the astronomer spent as much time dealing with a recalcitrant
crew as he did making observations) to John Balleny's voyage in
1839, hunting for fur seals. Many vessels sailed for profit as much
as for exploration and Gurney describes the virtual extinction of
the whales and fur seals, and the constant competition between
various nations for the best claims. His is a remarkable account of
heroic sailors, the irony being that all too often they had little
notion of what it was they had discovered. Their collective story
makes compelling reading. (Kirkus UK)
Voyages Toward Antarctica, 1699-1839
A remarkable account of the many explorations to discover the continent long suspected to exist at the South Pole.
The tantalizing theory of a huge southern continent, Terra Australis Incognita, had haunted the imaginations of countless geographers throughout history. Not until the second of his great voyages in 1773 did Captain James Cook finally lay the theory to rest. This wonderfully written book tells the story of British, American, and Russian expeditions, from the astronomer Edmond Halley's voyage in the Paramore in 1699, to the sealer John Balleny's 1839 voyage in the Eliza Scott, all in search of land, fur, or elephant seals. These were voyages for science, national prestige, and profit. Life was incredibly harsh: crews had poor provisions and inadequate clothing and were constantly threatened by scurvy. Often they had to make their own charts as they sailed in the stormy waters of the Southern Ocean below the Convergence, that sea frontier marking the boundary between the freezing Antarctic waters and the warmer sub-Antarctic seas. These seamen were the first to discover and exploit a new continent, which was not the verdant southern land imagined but an inhospitable expanse of rock and ice, ringed by pack ice and icebergs--Antarctica.
Alan Gurney is a yacht designer and photographer living on the Isle of Islay in Scotland. He has lectured on this subject aboard the Lindblad Explorer on trips to both the Antarctic and the Arctic.
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