HISTORY OF A CONTINENT.

King Country Chronicle, Volume V, Issue 345, 15 March 1911, Page 7

HISTORY OF A CONTINENT.

Strange has been the vicissitudes of the Antarctic Continent. A figment of geographic fancy evolved by Ortelius in ir>7o, the great Captain Cook thought that he had demolished it in 1773. Recascitated by an American sealer, N. B. Palmer, in IS2O, it took form and definite location under Wilkes's daring and persistent exploration of 1810, .supplemented by those of D'Urville, Enderby, and Kemp. Ross eliminated Wilkes's discoveries Tom his charts, but the continent was theoretically and scientifically reconstructed by the great physicists Carpenter and Murray. Slowly evolving its tangible shape through the discoveries of the German Drygalski, the Scotsman Bruce, the Belgian Gerlachie, the Frenchman Charcot, the Norwegian Larsen, and the Englishman Scott, through the late labours of Shackleton, the Antarctic Continent now appears to extend from Victoria Land west to Enderby Land, and from Wilkes Land across th? South Pole to Palmer Land. Taken all in all, Shackleton's discoveries are the most important and extensive ever made within the Antarctic Circle. He has determined the location of the Magnetic Pole, largely increased the known area oi the Southern Continent, virtually reached the South Pole, and added materially to our general knowledge of these regions.—"Century."