In the year 1840 there were two exploring expeditions in the Pacific, a French and an American, and the commissions of both were drawing to a close. Both, however, intended to make runs towards the Antarctic Circle before returning home. Captain Dumont D’Urville had two ships, the Astrolabe and the Zélée, Com. Jacquinot, under his command. When he sailed southward from Hobart Town on January 1st, 1840, his intention was only to make a new exploration along the edge of the pack ice. Icebergs were first encountered on the 16th January, and on the 19th as many as 59 were counted round the ships. Their perpendicular walls towered over the masts, and the spectacle was at once grand and terrifying. D’Urville imagined himself in the narrow streets of a city of giants. Having threaded his way among the icebergs, he found the newly-discovered land only a few miles distant, covered with snow, and rising to a height of 6000 feet. D’Urville sailed along the coast to the westward, noticing some projecting headlands and shallow bays, but always faced by an ice wall which rendered all landing impossible. Some bare islets were seen, and each ship sent a boat towards them with two officers, MM. Duroch and Dubourget. After two hours’ hard pulling the boats reached one of the islets and the observers landed, collected rock specimens, and hoisted the French flag. The islet was one of a group of eight or ten, separated from the nearest coast by rather less than a mile.

Dumont D’Urville gave the name of Adélie to the newly-discovered land, and Cape Découverte to a promontory sighted in the morning.

For some days the French corvettes encountered a furious gale while surrounded by icebergs, and were in considerable danger, but the wind moderated and on January 30th they came in sight of an ice cliff, varying in height from 100 to 150 feet, and forming a long line westwards. D’Urville gave it the name of the Côte Clarie.

The French expedition bade a final farewell to the polar regions on February 1st, 1840, and returned to Hobart Town. Important discoveries had been made, officers and men all vieing with each other in zeal and loyalty. It was a well conducted and successful voyage.

Dumont D’Urville had also previously surveyed part of the South Shetlands in 1838. He passed Clarence and Elephant Islands and, sailing down Bransfield Strait, discovered the north end of Graham Land without knowing it, which he named after Louis Philippe. An island to the east was named after the Prince de Joinville. He also saw a channel with the coast of Graham Land on one side, and Trinity with other islands on the other. To this he gave the name Orleans Channel.

The American expedition was commanded by Captain Wilkes, its object being chiefly to explore the Pacific, in a voyage of circumnavigation. Captain Wilkes concluded it with a visit to the edge of the ice south of Australia, following in the wake of Captain Balleny and also of Captain Dumont D’Urville.

The American squadron consisted of the Vincennes, Captain Wilkes, the Porpoise, Peacock, and Flying Fish tender. The tender parted company in 48° S. and went back. The Peacock also returned owing to severe injuries received from the ice. The Vincennes and Porpoise continued the voyage and on the 16th January they were at the edge of the ice, nearly on the Antarctic Circle and in 154° 30′ E. Here land was reported by the Porpoise “mountains seen”; “two peaks distinctly seen, very clear, few clouds.” Wilkes saw some land himself, and called it Ringgold’s Knoll. Land was also visible from the Vincennes, “every appearance of land, believed to be such by all on board.” All this was nevertheless a mistake, due to the deceptive appearance of ice and clouds.

In 1850 Captain Tapsell, in a sealer called the Brisk, sighted the Balleny Islands and then sailed west to Long. 143° E., finding no land. It is now known that the coast trends S.E. from Adélie Land, and could not possibly have been sighted from Wilkes’s position. Wilkes reported having sighted land or appearance of land 3000 feet high several times, seen over the fast ice, and he was within a few miles of a coast beyond Sabrina Land, which he called Knox Land. He then stood to the north and reported land ahead trending north in 64°, which he called Termination Land, but we now know that this does not exist.

Captain Wilkes’s theory has been proved to be quite correct—that there is a continuous land forming a coast-line of 2000 miles and more, and he certainly made out the distant land on several occasions, as Balleny and Dumont D’Urville had done before him, but his subsequent controversies are to be deplored.