“I will not say it was impossible anywhere to get farther to the south; but the attempting it would have been a dangerous and rash enterprise, and what, I believe, no man in my situation would have thought of.  It was, indeed, my opinion, as well as the opinion of most on board, that this ice extended quite to the Pole, or perhaps joined to some land, to which it had been fixed from the earliest time; and that it is here, that is to the south of this parallel, where all the ice we find scattered up and down to the north is first formed, and afterwards broken off by gales of wind, or other causes, and brought to the north by the currents, which are always found to set in that direction in the high latitudes.  As we drew near this ice some penguins were heard, but none seen; and but few other birds, or any other thing that could induce us to think any land was near.  And yet I think there must be some to the south beyond this ice; but if there is it can afford no better retreat for birds, or any other animals, than the ice itself, with which it must be wholly covered.  I, who had ambition not only to go farther than any one had been before, but as far as it was possible for man to go, was not sorry at meeting with this interruption; as it, in some measure, relieved us; at least, shortened the dangers and hardships inseparable from the navigation of the Southern Polar regions."[4]

And so he turned northwards, when, being “taken ill of the bilious colic,” a favourite dog belonging to one of the officers (Mr. Forster, after whom Aptenodytes forsteri, the Emperor penguin, is named) “fell a sacrifice to my tender stomach....  Thus I received nourishment and strength, from food which would have made most people in Europe sick:  so true it is that necessity is governed by no law."[5]

“Once and for all the idea of a populous fertile southern continent was proved to be a myth, and it was clearly shown that whatever land might exist to the South must be a region of desolation hidden beneath a mantle of ice and snow.  The vast extent of the tempestuous southern seas was revealed, and the limits of the habitable globe were made known.  Incidentally it may be remarked that Cook was the first to describe the peculiarities of the Antarctic icebergs and floe-ice."[6]

A Russian expedition under Bellingshausen discovered the first certain land in the Antarctic in 1819, and called it Alexander Land, which lies nearly due south of Cape Horn.

Whatever may have been the rule in other parts of the world, the flag followed trade in the southern seas during the first part of the nineteenth century.  The discovery of large numbers of seals and whales attracted many hundreds of ships, and it is to the enlightened instructions of such firms as Messrs. Enderby, and to the pluck and enterprise of such commanders as Weddell, Biscoe and Balleny, that we owe much of our small knowledge of the outline of the Antarctic continent.