Farthest South
Farthest South refers to the most southerly latitude reached by explorers before the first successful expedition to the South Pole in 1911.
Significant steps on the road to the pole were the discovery of lands south of
In the years before reaching the pole was a realistic objective, other motives drew adventurers southward. Initially, the driving force was the discovery of new trade routes between Europe and the Far East. After such routes had been established and the main geographical features of the Earth had been broadly mapped, the lure for mercantile adventurers was the great fertile continent of "Terra Australis" which, according to myth, lay hidden in the south. Belief in the existence of this supposed land of plenty persisted well into the 18th century; explorers were reluctant to accept the truth that slowly emerged, of a cold, harsh environment in the lands of the Southern Ocean.
James Cook's voyages of 1772–1775 demonstrated conclusively the likely hostile nature of any hidden lands. This caused a shift of emphasis in the first half of the 19th century, away from trade and towards sealing and whaling, and then exploration and discovery. After the first overwintering on continental Antarctica in 1898–99 (Adrien de Gerlache), the prospect of reaching the South Pole appeared realistic, and the race for the pole began. The British were pre-eminent in this endeavour, which was characterised by the rivalry between Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton during the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration. Shackleton's efforts fell short; Scott reached the pole in January 1912 only to find that he had been beaten by the Norwegian Amundsen.
Early voyagers
In 1494, the principal maritime powers, Portugal and Spain, signed a treaty which drew the Tordesillas line down the middle of the Atlantic Ocean and allocated all trade routes to the east of the line to Portugal. That gave Portugal dominance of the only known route to the east–via the Cape of Good Hope and Indian Ocean, which left Spain, and later other countries, to seek a western route to the Pacific. The exploration of the south began as part of the search for such a route.[1]
Unlike the
While the natives of Tierra del Fuego were not capable of true oceanic travel, there is some evidence of
Ferdinand Magellan
Although Portuguese by birth, Ferdinand Magellan transferred his allegiance to
In September 1520, the voyage continued down the uncharted coast, and on 21 October reached 52°S. Here Magellan found a deep inlet which proved to be the strait he was seeking, later to be known by his name.[13] Early in November 1520, as the squadron navigated through the strait, they reached its most southerly point at approximate latitude 54°S. This was a record Farthest South for a European navigator, though not the farthest southern penetration by man; the position was north of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago, where there is evidence of human settlement dating back thousands of years.[14]
Francisco de Hoces
The first sighting of an ocean passage to the Pacific south of Tierra del Fuego is sometimes attributed to Francisco de Hoces of the
Sir Francis Drake
Sir Francis Drake sailed from Plymouth on 15 November 1577, in command of a fleet of five ships under his flagship Pelican, later renamed the Golden Hinde. His principal objective was plunder, not exploration; his initial targets were the unfortified Spanish towns on the Pacific coasts of Chile and Peru. Following Magellan's route, Drake reached Puerto San Julian on 20 June. After nearly two months in harbour, Drake left the port with a reduced fleet of three ships and a small pinnace. His ships entered the Magellan Strait on 23 August and emerged in the Pacific Ocean on 6 September.[16]
Drake set a course to the north-west, but on the following day, a gale scattered the ships. The Marigold was sunk by a giant wave; the Elizabeth managed to return into the Magellan Strait, later sailing eastwards back to England; the pinnace was lost later. The gales persisted for more than seven weeks. The Golden Hinde was driven far to the west and south, before clawing its way back towards land. On 22 October, the ship anchored off an island which Drake named "Elizabeth Island", where wood for the galley fires was collected and seals and penguins captured for food.[16]
According to Drake's Portuguese pilot, Nuno da Silva, their position at the anchorage was 57°S. However, there is no island at that latitude. The as yet undiscovered Diego Ramírez Islands, at 56°30'S, are treeless and cannot have been the islands where Drake's crew collected wood. This indicates that the navigational calculation was faulty, and that Drake landed at or near the then unnamed Cape Horn, possibly on Horn Island itself. His final southern latitude can only be speculated as that of Cape Horn, at 55°59'S. In his report, Drake wrote: "The Uttermost Cape or headland of all these islands stands near 56 degrees, without which there is no main island to be seen to the southwards but that the Atlantic Ocean and the South Sea meet." This open sea south of Cape Horn became known as the Drake Passage even though Drake himself did not traverse it.[16]
Willem Schouten
On 14 June 1615, Willem Schouten, with two ships Eendracht and Hoorn, set sail from Texel in the Netherlands in search of a western route to the Pacific. Hoorn was lost in a fire, but Eendracht continued southward. On 29 January 1616, Schouten reached what he discerned to be the southernmost cape of the South American continent; he named this point Kaap Hoorn (Cape Horn) after his hometown and his lost ship. Schouten's navigational readings are inaccurate—he placed Cape Horn at 57°48' south, when its actual position is 55°58'. His claim to have reached 58° south is unverified, although he sailed on westward to become the first European navigator to reach the Pacific via the Drake Passage.[17]
Garcia de Nodal expedition
The next recorded navigation of the Drake Passage was achieved in February 1619, by the brothers Bartolome and Gonzalo Garcia de Nodal. The Garcia de Nodal expedition discovered a small group of islands about 60 nautical miles (100 km; 70 mi) south-west of Cape Horn, at latitude 56°30'S. They named these the Diego Ramirez Islands after the expedition's pilot. The islands remained the most southerly known land on earth until Captain James Cook's discovery of the South Sandwich Islands in 1775.[18]
Other discoveries
Other voyages brought further discoveries in the southern oceans; in August 1592, the English seaman John Davis had taken shelter "among certain Isles never before discovered"—presumed to be the
Early Antarctic explorers
Captain James Cook
During the ensuing months, the expedition explored the southern Pacific Ocean before Cook took Resolution south again—Adventure had retired back to South Africa after a confrontation with the New Zealand native population.[24] This time Cook was able to penetrate deep beyond the Antarctic Circle, and on 30 January 1774 reached 71°10'S, his Farthest South,[25] but the state of the ice made further southward travel impossible. This southern record would hold for 49 years.[26]
In the course of his voyages in Antarctic waters, Cook had encircled the world at latitudes generally above 60°S, and saw nothing but bleak inhospitable islands, without a hint of the fertile continent which some still hoped lay in the south. Cook wrote that if any such continent existed it would be "a country doomed by nature", and that "no man will venture further than I have done, and the land to the South will never be explored". He concluded: "Should the impossible be achieved and the land attained, it would be wholly useless and of no benefit to the discoverer or his nation".[27]
Searching for land
Despite Cook's prediction, the early 19th century saw numerous attempts to penetrate southward, and to discover new lands. In 1819,
James Weddell
James Weddell was an
In 1822, Weddell, again in command of Jane and this time accompanied by a smaller ship, the
Benjamin Morrell
In November 1823, the American sealing captain Benjamin Morrell reached the South Sandwich Islands in the schooner Wasp.[34] According to his own later account he then sailed south, unconsciously following the track taken by James Weddell a month previously. Morrell claimed to have reached 70°14'S, at which point he turned north because the ship's stoves were running short of fuel—otherwise, he says, he could have "reached 85° without the least doubt".[35] After turning, he claimed to have encountered land which he described in some detail, and which he named New South Greenland. This land proved not to exist. Morrell's reputation as a liar and a fraud means that most of his geographical claims have been dismissed by scholars, although attempts have been made to rationalise his assertions.[36]
James Clark Ross
James Clark Ross's 1839–1843 Antarctic expedition in
The expedition left England on 30 September 1839, and after a voyage that was slowed by the many stops required to carry out work on magnetism, it reached
The Great Ice Barrier (later to be called the "Ross Ice Shelf") stretched away east of these mountains, forming an impassable obstacle to further southward progress. In his search for a strait or inlet, Ross explored 300 nautical miles (560 km; 350 mi) along the edge of the barrier, and reached an approximate latitude of 78°S on or about 8 February 1841.[39] He failed to find a suitable anchorage that would have allowed the ships to over-winter, so he returned to Tasmania, arriving there in April 1841.[39]
The following season Ross returned and located an inlet in the Barrier face that enabled him, on 23 February 1842, to extend his Farthest South to 78°09'30"S,
Explorers of the Heroic Age
The oceanographic research voyage known as the
The impetus for what would become known as the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration came in 1895, when in an address to the Sixth International Geographical Congress in London, Professor
Carsten Borchgrevink
The Norwegian-born
Borchgrevink then went to England, where he was able to persuade the publishing magnate Sir George Newnes to finance him to the extent of £40,000,[49] equivalent to £4.51 million in 2019,[50] with the sole stipulation that, despite the shortage of British participants, the venture be styled the "British Antarctic Expedition".[51] This was by no means the grand British expedition envisaged by Markham and the geographical establishment, who were hostile and dismissive of Borchgrevink.[52] On 23 August 1898 the expedition ship Southern Cross left London for the Ross Sea, reaching Cape Adare on 17 February 1899. Here a shore party was landed and was the first to over-winter on the Antarctic mainland, in a prefabricated hut.[49]
In January 1900, Southern Cross returned, picked up the shore party and, following the route which Ross had taken 60 years previously, sailed southward to the Great Ice Barrier, which they discovered had retreated some 30 miles (48 km) south since the days of Ross.
Robert Falcon Scott
The Discovery Expedition of 1901–1904 was
The southern journey was undertaken by Scott, Wilson and Ernest Shackleton. The party set out on 1 November 1902 with various teams in support, and one of these, led by Michael Barne, passed Borchgrevink's Farthest South mark on 11 November, an event recorded with great high spirits in Wilson's diary.[56] The march continued, initially in favourable weather conditions,[57] but encountered increasing difficulties caused by the party's lack of ice travelling experience and the loss of all its dogs through a combination of poor diet and overwork.[58] The 80°S mark was passed on 2 December,[59] and four weeks later, on 30 December 1902, Wilson and Scott took a short ski trip from their southern camp to set a new Farthest South at (according to their measurements) 82°17'S.[60] Modern maps, correlated with Shackleton's photograph and Wilson's drawing, put their final camp at 82°6'S, and the point reached by Scott and Wilson at 82°11'S, 200 nautical miles (370 km; 230 mi) beyond Borchgrevink's mark.[61]
Ernest Shackleton
After his share in the Farthest South achievement of the Discovery Expedition, Ernest Shackleton suffered a physical collapse on the return journey, and was sent home with the expedition's relief vessel on orders from Scott;[62] he bitterly resented it, and the two became rivals. Four years later, Shackleton organised his own polar venture, the Nimrod Expedition, 1907–1909. This was the first expedition to set the definite objective of reaching the South Pole, and to have a specific strategy for doing so.[63]
To assist his endeavour, Shackleton adopted a mixed transport strategy, involving the use of Manchurian ponies as pack animals, as well as the more traditional dog-sledges. A specially adapted motor car was also taken.[63] Although the dogs and the car were used during the expedition for a number of purposes, the task of assisting the group that would undertake the march to the pole fell to the ponies. The size of Shackleton's four-man polar party was dictated by the number of surviving ponies; of the ten that were embarked in New Zealand, only four had survived the 1908 winter.[64]
Polar conquest
In the wake of Shackleton's near miss, Robert Scott organised the Terra Nova Expedition, 1910–1913, in which securing the South Pole for the British Empire was an explicitly stated prime objective.[71] As he planned his expedition, Scott saw no reason to believe that his effort would be contested. However, the Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen, who had been developing plans for a North Pole expedition, changed his mind when, in September 1909, the North Pole was claimed in quick succession by the Americans Frederick Cook and Robert Peary. Amundsen resolved to go south instead.[72]
Amundsen concealed his revised intentions until his ship, Fram, was in the Atlantic and beyond communication.[73] Scott was notified by telegram that a rival was in the field, but had little choice other than to continue with his own plans.[74] Meanwhile, Fram arrived at the Ross Ice Shelf on 11 January 1911, and by 14 January had found the inlet, or "Bay of Whales", where Borchgrevink had made his landing eleven years earlier. This became the location of Amundsen's base camp, Framheim.[75]
After nine months' preparation, Amundsen's polar journey began on 20 October 1911.[76] Avoiding the known route to the polar plateau via the Beardmore Glacier, Amundsen led his party of five due south, reaching the Transantarctic Mountains on 16 November.[77] They discovered the Axel Heiberg Glacier, which provided them with a direct route to the polar plateau and on to the pole. Shackleton's Farthest South mark was passed on 7 December, and the South Pole was reached on 14 December 1911.[78] The Norwegian party's greater skills with the techniques of ice travel, using ski and dogs, had proved decisive in their success. Scott's five-man team reached the same point 33 days later, and perished during their return journey.[79] Since Cook's journeys, every expedition that had held the Farthest South record before Amundsen's conquest had been British; however, the final triumph indisputably belonged to the Norwegians.[80]
Later history
After Scott's retreat from the pole in January 1912, the location remained unvisited for nearly 18 years. On 28 November 1929, US Navy
Farthest South records
- Table of Farthest South records, 1521 to 1911 (letters in "Map key" column relate to adjoining map)
Expedition leader | Organizing country | Latitude achieved | Location | Map key | Date |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Yaghan people
|
----- | 55°58' | Cape Horn (speculative) | B | From prehistoric times.[14] |
Ferdinand Magellan | Spain[n 5] | 54° (approximate) | Strait of Magellan; inhabited land southward on Tierra del Fuego | A | November 1521[13] |
Francisco de Hoces | Spain | 55°59' (speculative) | Cape Horn | B | January–February 1526[15] |
Sir Francis Drake | England | 55°59' (speculative) | Cape Horn | B | October 1578[16] |
Gonzalo García del Nodal
|
Spain | 56°30' | Diego Ramirez Islands
|
C | February 1619[18] |
James Cook | Kingdom of Great Britain | 66°20' | SE of Cape Town | D | 17 January 1773[23] |
James Cook | Kingdom of Great Britain | 71°10' | SE of New Zealand | E | 30 January 1774[25] |
James Weddell | United Kingdom | 74°15' | Weddell Sea | F | 20 February 1823[31] |
James Clark Ross | United Kingdom | 78° (approximate) | Ross Sea | G | 8 February 1841[39] |
James Clark Ross | United Kingdom | 78°09'30" | Ross Sea | G | 23 January 1842[40] |
/ Carsten Borchgrevink | United Kingdom[n 6] | 78°50' | Ross Ice Shelf | H | 16 February 1900[53] |
Robert Falcon Scott | United Kingdom | 82°17' (adjusted to 82°11') | Ross Ice Shelf | I | 30 December 1902[61] |
Ernest Shackleton | United Kingdom | 88°23' | South Polar Plateau
|
J | 9 January 1909[67] |
Roald Amundsen | Norway | 90° | South Pole | K | 14 December 1911[78] |
See also
Notes and references
Notes
- ^ Other claims to the Falklands discovery have been made, particularly that of Netherlander Sebald de Weert in 1600, hence the early name for the group "Sebaldine Islands".[17]
- ^ Weddell intended to call the sea "Sea of George IV", but this name was not adopted, and it became the Weddell Sea.[32]
- ^ Evidence for the existence of an Antarctic continent came from the rocks dredged from the sea floor after being carried there in icebergs and deposited as the icebergs melted.[43]
- ^ Borchgrevink's group may have been preceded on the Antarctic mainland by John Davis in the Antarctic Peninsula, in 1821, but Davis's landing might have been on an island.[30]
- ^ Although Portuguese by birth, Magellan's enterprise was Spanish.[13]
- ^ Borchgrevink's expedition sailed under the British flag. He was half-Norwegian, half-British.[51]
Citations
- ^ Knox-Johnston, pp. 20–22
- ^ a b Furlong, Charles Wellington (December 1915). "The Haush And Ona, Primitive Tribes of Tierra Del Fuego". Proceedings of the Nineteenth International Congress of Americanists: 432–444.
- S2CID 129083566.
- S2CID 129083566.
- ^ "Authentication of aboriginal remains in the South Shetland Islands". NASA. 15 October 2012. Archived from the original on 2 January 2014. Retrieved 2 January 2014. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain.
- ISBN 978-0674026339.
- ^ O'Connor, Tom Polynesians in the Southern Ocean: Occupation of the Auckland Islands in Prehistory in New Zealand Geographic 69 (September–October 2004): 6–8)
- ^ Anderson, Atholl, & Gerard R. O'Regan To the Final Shore: Prehistoric Colonisation of the Sub antarctic Islands in South Polynesia in Australian Archaeologist: Collected Papers in Honor of Jim Allen Canberra: Australian National University, 2000. 440–454.
- ^ Anderson, Atholl, & Gerard R. O'Regan The Polynesian Archaeology of the Sub antarctic Islands: An Initial Report on Enderby Island Southern Margins Project Report. Dunedin: Ngai Tahu Development Report, 1999
- ^ Anderson, Atholl Subpolar Settlement in South Polynesia Antiquity 79.306 (2005): 791–800
- ^ "A Bitter Place of Cold". The Discovery Channel. Archived from the original on 29 June 2015. Retrieved 14 July 2015.
- ^ "Nga-Iwi-O-Aotea". Te Ao Hou (The Maori Magazine) (59). June 1967.
- ^ a b c d e "The European Voyages of Exploration: Ferdinand Magellan". University of Calgary. 1997. Archived from the original on 17 September 2008. Retrieved 28 July 2008.
- ^ a b Hogan, C. Michael. "Bahia Wulaia Dome Middens – Ancient Village or Settlement in Chile". The Megalithic Portal. Retrieved 14 July 2015.
- ^ ISBN 84-7232-130-4. (in Spanish)
- ^ a b c d Knox-Johnston, pp. 40–45
- ^ a b Knox-Johnston, pp. 57–59
- ^ a b Knox-Johnston, pp. 60–61
- ^ Knox-Johnston, p. 52
- ^ a b c "An Antarctic Timeline". South-pole.com. Retrieved 29 August 2008.
- ^ Coleman, pp. 53–54
- ^ a b Coleman, pp. 56–57
- ^ a b c Coleman, p. 59
- ^ Coleman, p. 61
- ^ a b Preston, p. 11
- ^ Preston, pp. 11–12
- ^ Coleman, pp. 62–64
- ^ a b c Knox-Johnston, pp. 85–86
- ^ Markham, pp. 396–397
- ^ a b Barczewski, p. 19
- ^ ISBN 978-1-875567-39-3.
- ^ Coleman, p. 325
- ^ Speak, p. 93
- ^ Gould, p. 263
- ^ Morrell, pp. 65–68
- ^ Mills, pp. 434–435
- ^ a b c Coleman, pp. 326–328
- ^ Huntford, p. 22
- ^ a b c d Coleman, pp. 329–332
- ^ a b Coleman, p. 335
- ^ Coleman, p. 340
- ^ Jones, pp. 56–57
- ^ McGonigal. p. 289
- ^ Crane, p. 75
- ^ Fisher, p. 18
- ^ Fiennes, p. 9
- ^ Preston, p. 15
- ^ "Carsten Egeberg Borchgrevink (1864–1934)". Borchgrevink, Carsten Egeberg (1864–1934). Australian Dictionary of Biography – online edition. Retrieved 9 August 2008.
- ^ a b c d e "Carsten Borchgrevink 1864–1934". South-pole.com. Retrieved 29 July 2008.
- Gross Domestic Product deflator figures follow the MeasuringWorth "consistent series" supplied in Thomas, Ryland; Williamson, Samuel H. (2018). "What Was the U.K. GDP Then?". MeasuringWorth. Retrieved 2 February 2020.
- ^ a b Preston, p. 4
- ^ a b Crane, p. 74
- ^ a b Preston, pp. 13–15
- ^ Wilson diary, 12 June 1902, p. 151
- ^ Savours, p. 16
- ^ Wilson diary, 11 November, p. 214
- ^ Wilson's diary entry for 15 December, p. 225, refers to a "blazing hot day"
- ^ Crane, p. 205, pp. 223–227
- ^ Wilson diary, 3 December, p. 220
- ^ Wilson diary, 30 December, p. 230.
- ^ a b Crane, pp. 214–215
- ^ Riffenburgh, pp. 87–89
- ^ a b Riffenburgh, p. 108
- ^ Riffenburgh, p. 177
- ^ Shackleton, p. 171
- ^ Riffenburgh, p. 204
- ^ a b c d Riffenburgh, pp. 227–233
- ^ Shackleton, p. 210
- ^ Riffenburgh, p. 296
- ^ Amundsen (Vol II), pp. 113–114
- ^ Crane, p. 397
- ^ Huntford, pp. 207–208
- ^ Huntford, pp. 283–288
- ^ Huntford, p. 299
- ^ Huntford, pp. 297–298
- ^ Amundsen, p. 1
- ^ Amundsen, pp. 33–40
- ^ a b Amundsen, pp. 120–130
- ^ Crane, p. 543
- ^ Huntford, p. 511
- ^ "South Pole Station – the first 10 years". South Pole Station. Retrieved 14 July 2015.
- ^ "Amundsen-Scott South Polar Station". National Science Foundation. Retrieved 30 September 2008.
- ^ Fuchs and Hillary, pp. 76, 85–86
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Further reading
- Scott, Robert F. (1905). Voyage of the Discovery. 2 vols. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
- Scott, Robert F. (1913). Scott's Last Expedition. Vol. I. London: Smith, Elder & Co.
External links
- "Diego Ramirez Islands". Mundoandino.com. Archived from the original on 20 May 2008. Retrieved 28 July 2008.
- "Ferdinand Magellan biography". esd.k12.ca.us/Matsumoto. 2001. Archived from the original on 18 April 2008. Retrieved 7 August 2008.
- Seeler, Oliver (1996). "The Voyage: A Synopsis of Drake's Circumnavigation". mcn.org. Archived from the original on 26 July 2008. Retrieved 28 July 2008.