Report on the Collections of Natural History Made in the Antarctic Regions during the Voyage of the ‘Southern Cross’

Creator

Date

1902

Identifier

Expeditions (Special Collections) Q115 S685 1898

Publisher

London: Printed by Order of the Trustees [British Museum]

Description

Leptonychotes weddelli[i] - Weddell Seal

Abstract

The Voyage of the Southern Cross, 1898-1900; (also known as British Antarctic Expedition) - Privately-funded by Sir George Newnes, a British publishing magnate, and led by Anglo-Norwegian explorer, Carsten Borchgrevink (1864-1934), Southern Cross sailed for Antarctica on 22nd August, 1898. It was an expedition of ‘firsts’: the first to use dogs on the ice; the first to erect buildings on the frozen continent; the first expedition party to ‘overwinter’ on the continental mainland; and unfortunately (after the death, supposedly from intestinal problems, of Norwegian zoologist Nicolai Hanson (1870-99)), the first to bury a body on Antarctica. On its return to England in June of 1900, despite its ‘ground-breaking achievements in Antarctic survival and travel’ and a number of ‘firsts’, the Southern Cross expedition did not receive the same accolades as subsequent British Antarctic expeditions in 1901-04, 1907-09 and 1910-13. Physicist and astronomer of the expedition, Louis Charles Bernacchi (1876-1942) wrote an account of his time aboard Southern Cross and subsequently joined as physicist Robert Falcon Scott’s Discovery expedition to Antarctica in 1901-04.

Files

Southern Cross seals.jpg

Citation

___, “Report on the Collections of Natural History Made in the Antarctic Regions during the Voyage of the ‘Southern Cross’,” ourheritage.ac.nz | OUR Heritage, accessed March 29, 2024, https://otago.ourheritage.ac.nz/items/show/8289.