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The Second Circumnavigation
Forty-five years passed before
Antarctica was sailed around again.
Many
sealers
went to islands such as
South Georgia looking for fur seals.
They probably saw many parts of
Antarctica, but there are few records
of their voyages.
It took another clever seaman to
attempt what Cook had done. He was
a Russian naval officer named Captain
Thaddeus Bellingshausen. He left
Russia in 1819 with two ships,
Mirny
and
Vostok
.
Bellingshausen knew of Cook’s
voyage. Where Cook was forced north
by ice or poor weather, he would try
to go south. For days all he could see
was pack ice. On January 20, 1820,
Mirny
crashed into a large
floe
. The
crew survived and pressed on. Several
months later in Australia, they
discovered that the ice had made a
yard-long hole in the ship’s side. Only
a layer of
tarred canvas
had stopped
the sea rushing in.
Bellingshausen discovered
several new islands. On January 27,
1820, he came within 19 miles (32 km)
of the coast of Antarctica. At that point
the coast is made up of long low ice
cliffs. To Bellingshausen they looked
just like a line of icebergs. Because he
did not see any rock he did not
recognize it as the continent.
Cook and Bellingshausen had
similar bad luck. Both made
extraordinary voyages around
Antarctica. Somehow they survived
seas full of ice and Antarctic storms.
Yet neither could say that they had seen
the continent.
B
ellingshausen (1778-1852)
was a Russian explorer who
sailed to 70°S. He was
probably the first
person to discover
Antarctica but did
not realize it, thinking
he was looking
at icebergs.
C
ook and Bellingshausen both circumnavigated Antarctica. They showed that
the continent was far smaller than previously thought. Both discovered several
new islands, many full of fur seals.
Antarctic Exploration