Departing London on August 22, 1898, Southern Cross arrived at Cape Adare on February 17, 1899. Vincennes and Relief were to survey the coast of Tierra del Fuego. Instead, at the invitation of the British Ambassador, the Oficina Meteorológica Argentina agreed to assume responsibility for the station. A graduate of the US Naval Academy, Byrd had claimed in 1926 to be first to fly over the North Pole (the claim has been questioned). By the time the expedition sailed on August 18, 1838, a depressed Wilkes confided to his private diary that he felt ‘doomed to destruction.’ After sailing down the east coast of South America to Orange Harbour, near the tip of Tierra del Fuego, Wilkes divided the fleet in three. Even on the last leg of the flight, problems plagued them: Polar Star ran out of fuel 25km from the Bay of Whales, and they trekked eight days to reach it. Landing at Cape Adare convinced Borchgrevink it was possible to survive an Antarctic winter ashore, so he decided to organize his own expedition to be first to accomplish it. The first expedition to Antarctica with travelers was in 1966, led by Swedish explorer Lars Eric Lindblad. As might be expected of an expedition planned by committee, the US Ex Ex, as it became known, lacked focus. The aim of these expeditions was often more competitive than scientific. Wilkins returned to the Antarctic the next summer, making more flights and discoveries. To prevent scurvy, he urged de Gerlache to set an example by eating fresh seal and penguin meat, which the men detested. If the seals in these regions had been protected and only a certain number of ‘dogs’ (young male seals unable to hold their positions on the beaches) allowed to be killed, these islands and coasts would be again populous with seal life. Sure that a fortune could be made by reviving the Antarctic whaling trade, but unable to convince any Australians to join him, Bull returned to Norway in 1893. The ship also boasted electric lighting and a 1500-volume library. Instead of reproach, he received the highest award of the newly established Royal Geographical Society. The infamous three-man midwinter trek to Cape Crozier, which Apsley Cherry-Garrard chronicled so eloquently in The Worst Journey in the World, braved 24-hour darkness and temperatures as low as -59°C – so cold that the men’s teeth cracked in their mouths and they were ‘beginning to think of death as a friend, ’ as Cherry-Garrard wrote – all so that they could be the first to collect emperor penguin embryos. By November, a fuel depot was set up at the foot of the Axel Heiberg Glacier (the same glacier Amundsen had used) leading up to the polar plateau, since Floyd Bennett’s fuel tanks couldn’t carry enough to reach 90°S and back. The bay was so small that the explorers were able to stretch a hawser across its mouth to keep out ice that might otherwise crush their ship. Today, only geological formations, coal beds, and fossils remain as clues to Antarctica’s warm past. A £3000 profit made from sealing at Îles Kerguelen evaporated when the ship ran aground at Campbell Island. About 99% of Antarctica is covered by ice. © Trying unsuccessfully to cross through her namesake strait to reach the Peninsula’s east coast – and the men at Snow Hill – Antarctic stopped at Hope Bay on the Peninsula’s tip to drop off three men, who would try to hike the 320km to Snow Hill. Tens of thousands of aerial photographs were taken along nearly three-quarters of the continent’s coast, although their usefulness for mapmaking was limited by a lack of ground surveys. Contact Lonely Planet. In 1819 Czar Alexander I dispatched Bellingshausen on a voyage to the Southern Ocean, a dream assignment for Bellingshausen, who had long admired Cook’s voyages. Although an observer noted ‘only sleepy indifference, ’ some photos show that the bird was tethered by a line to prevent escape. The latter part of the heroic age centred on the race for the South Pole and other Antarctic firsts. After 16 exhausting days at sea, they landed at South Georgia, completing one of history’s greatest navigational feats. Despite attempts at plugging the hole and round-the-clock pumping, the ship continued to flood. So he was well suited for the task assigned to him in 1900: leadership of the Swedish South Polar Expedition, the first to winter in the Antarctic Peninsula region. There was also the view taken by some that Amundsen’s surprise assault on the Pole had forestalled Scott, as though the British explorer had the ‘right’ to reach the Pole first (although Amundsen preceded him to the Antarctic). Although the kayak never became an important mode of Antarctic transportation, the Primus was carried by nearly every expedition that followed Borchgrevink’s. Elephant seals grow to massive sizes, particularly males, but the sealers found ‘sea elephants’ easy prey. By this time, scurvy plagued his ships; on the return to Tierra del Fuego a sailor died of the dreaded disease. Following his Arctic flight, Byrd raised nearly a million dollars from such eminent sponsors as Charles Lindbergh (US$1000), the National Geographic Society and the New York Times, which paid US$60, 000 for exclusive rights and the privilege of sending its own reporter, Russell Owen, on the expedition. 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