Not All Ice and Snow

ROBERT A. WOLVEN
 

The early 1840s saw an intense interest in Antarctic explora¬
tion, with three major expeditions in the field almost simul¬
taneously. A public eager for early accounts of these adven¬
tures could turn to James Croxall Palmer's poem, "Thulia," where
they would read of how

The Braving penguin sounds his horn
And flights of cormorants are screaming
Their croaking welcome to the morn
Athwart the frozen mountains gleaming.

In the annals of poetic ornithology, the braying penguin may not rival
the Ancient Mariner's albatross, but it made its small contribution to
perhaps the best-documented era in the history of exploration. For
Palmer's first-hand account of his adventures is joined by those ofthe
few earlier Antarctic explorers and of many more to follow. His nar¬
rative, and those of his fellows in the United States Exploring Expedi¬
tion, form an intermediate link in a chain leading from the journals of
Captain Cook in the 1770s to the dramatic tales of Scott, Schackle-
ton, and Amundsen in the eariy 1900s, These works, along with
many other accounts of polar voyages, are to be found among the
Libris Polaris volumes in the Columbia University Libraries,

There had been exploring voyages in southern waters before the
1840s, but most had been small-scale efforts by sealers and whalers in
search of new grounds, as more northerly waters became depleted.
These men had made significant geographic findings, including sev¬
eral sightings of land on the Antarctic Peninsula, and had penetrated
as far as 73° S,, but their explorations had always been somewhat
haphazard, and there had been little attempt at scientific observation.
The one attempt at a well-equipped scientific expedition was a Rus¬
sian effort under Admiral Fabian von Bellingshausen in 1820-1821,
but the difficulty of recruiting qualified scientists for a rigorous polar
 

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