Page:Twenty years before the mast - Charles Erskine, 1896.djvu/147

 at Valparaiso. Here another observatory was established. A scientific party visited the bank of snow from which the city is supplied with water, on one of the outlying ranges of the Cordilleras,  the principal heights of which rose nearly four thousand feet above  them. Others visited the mines of Chili. They then proceeded to the coasts of Peru, and thence, after a visit to the interior and to  the ruins of Pachacamac, commenced their explorations in the  Pacific.

On the 26th of December, 1839, they left Sydney, and first fell in with the ice on the 10th of January, 1840, in latitude 61° 8' south,  and longitude 163° 32′ east; and on the 11th some of the officers  were confident they saw indications of land. Captain Wilkes does not rely much on this, but on the 16th those evidences became  more positive, and on the 19th they distinctly saw land in longitude  154° 30′ east, and latitude 66° 20′ south. Captain Wilkes, however, only dates the discovery which he claims for his expedition, from the land seen on the 16th. I mention this the more anxiously on this occasion on account of the controversy which has arisen  between him and Sir James Ross, who sailed over the spot where  land was supposed to have been seen on the 11th. To this, however, I wish to allude as lightly as possible, convinced as I am that both these gallant officers have only been anxious to establish the  truth, and to advance the cause of science. Undoubtedly, on the tracing which Captain Wilkes furnished to Sir James Ross the land  supposed to have been seen on the 11th is sketched in, and, as a  measure of precaution, it was, perhaps, prudent in Captain Wilkes  so to do. It would have been more satisfactory if he could have stated to Sir James Ross, as he had done in his published account,  on what slight and imperfect evidence its existence in that position  was laid down.

After continuing his explorations of the Antarctic Continent as far to the westward as longitude 97° east, Captain Wilkes, finding  his provisions short and the season far advanced, turned his ship’s  head to the north and quitted those frozen latitudes.

I regret that it is impossible, within the limits of this address, to do justice to the contents of the five volumes in which Captain  Wilkes has described the progress of the expedition; but I trust I