Abstract
THE most vexed question in antarctic geography has been the nature of the region west of South Victoria Land. D'Urville and Wilkes, who explored that region in 1838 and 1839, reported land in so many localities that it has been generally believed that their tracks skirted a continuous ice-covered and ice-barred land. Ross, however, sailed across the site of some of the land reported by Wilkes, and later explorers have had the same experience. The view has therefore often been held that this part of Antarctica consists of an archipelago. The first material step toward the solution of this problem was the sledge journey of David, Mawson, and Mackay during Shackleton's expedition. Their journey afforded strong evidence in favour of the continuity of the land; but this land might end far south of Wilkes's track and be separated from it by a fringe of islands. This question has been finally settled by the Australian expedition of 1911 to 1914 under Sir Douglas Mawson. The narrative of its experiences with some indications of its scientific results are given in two massive and superbly illustrated volumes.
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G., J. The Australian Antarctic Expedition 1 . Nature 95, 260–262 (1915). https://doi.org/10.1038/095260b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/095260b0