Note on Antarctic History

Extract

To the student of Antarctic history the details of its discovery, and of the early voyages along its shores, are matters of great interest and are now coming under critical review. The area over which there is most difference of opinion is that part of Antarctica which projects as a great peninsula, Graham Land, to the south of South America. It is this sector which forms the subject of a recent memoir by Professor William Herbert Hobbs of Ann Arbor, Michigan, followed by a detailed review of that work by A. R. H. Professor Hobbs's memoir is entitled “The Discoveries of Antarctica within the American Sector as revealed by Maps and Documents” (Trans. Amer. Phil. Soc. Philadelphia, New Series, xxxi, 1939, pp. 1–71), while A. R. H.'s review appears under the heading “On Some Misrepresentations of Antarctic History” (Geographical Journal, xciv, 1939, pp. 309–30). For complete understanding of the disputed facts concentrated effort is required in the reading of both authors. That A. R. H. in his review should find it necessary to state that the author of the memoir “denounces as forgeries what are most evidently genuine documents, with no further proof than his own falsification of the photograph he obtained from Cornwall House”, shows the need for the student of Antarctic history not to limit his reading to one only of the two writers.