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1778-1852
The man
chosen to command the expedition was Fabian Gottlieb von
Bellingshausen. Born in 1779, he began his naval career as a
cadet at the age of 10, graduating from the Naval Academy at
Kronstadt at the age of 18. He was 40 years old when the
call came forth for his exciting voyage to the south polar
region. His goal was to continue the work of Cook while
sailing as far south as possible. It is safe to say that
Bellingshausen considered Cook a personal hero and mentor as
he constantly studied Cook's remarkable
achievements. Bellingshausen's
flagship was a 600 ton corvette named the Vostok .
The second ship was the 530 ton Mirnyi which was a
transport vessel. Both ships were built of pinewood. A total
of 117 men sailed with the Vostok and 72 were aboard
the Mirnyi. In the third week of July, they set sail
eventually arriving at Portsmouth, England where he went on
to meet in London with the president of the Royal Society,
Sir Joseph Banks. Banks had sailed 50 years earlier with
Cook and now supplied the Russians with books and charts for
their expedition. On September 5, 1819 Bellingshausen's
polar expedition departed from Portsmouth and by the end of
the year they were within sight of South Georgia. From here
they headed southeast for the South Sandwich Islands where
they began a circumnavigation of the group. It is
interesting to note that icebergs supplied their fresh water
needs. On January 26, 1820 Bellingshausen crossed the
Antarctic Circle becoming the first to do so since Cook in
1773. The following day his log indicates sailing to within
20 miles of the Antarctic mainland. He should have been able
to see it so perhaps he simply mistook it for a wall of ice.
The dispute as to who first sighted the mainland remains to
this day. England says it was their naval captain Edward
Bransfield, America says it was their sealer Nathaniel
Palmer while the Russians insist it was Bellingshausen.
On February 22 the Vostok and
Mirnyi were hit by the worst storm of the voyage. For
three days they were pounded by the storm with heavy snows
and wind causing ice encrusted ropes and spars which
concealed the icebergs from the weary lookouts. His only
option was to sail north and on April 11, 1820 the faster
Vostok arrived at Sydney harbor with the
Mirnyi entering the harbor eight days later. After a
month of rest, Bellingshausen took his ships on a four month
exploratory cruise of the Pacific. Arriving back in Sydney
in September, Bellingshausen was notified by the Russian
consul that an English sealing captain named William Smith
had discovered a group of islands on the 67th parallel,
which he called the South Shetlands, and had proclaimed them
to be part of the Antarctic continent. Bellingshausen
immediately decided to take a look for himself with the
major motive of finding a way to continue further
south. On the
morning of November 11, 1820 the Vostok and
Mirnyi left Sydney for the last time arriving at
Macquarie Island the last week of November where they
exchanged greetings with English and American sealers. Here
they discovered the fur seal population had been entirely
wiped out and now the slaughter was of the elephant
seals. On
December 24th the ships once again penetrated the Antarctic
Circle, the first since their exploratory voyage eleven
months earlier. It didn't last long as they were confronted
with storms pushing them northward and by the 16th of
January, 1821 they had crossed the circle no less than 6
different times with each time resulting in the relentless
storms forcing them northward. On January 21 the weather
finally had cleared and at 3:00 pm they spotted a dark speck
against the ice in the distance. All telescopes on the
Vostok scanned the sight and with the increasing
sunlight Bellingshausen had no doubt that they had
discovered land within the Antarctic Circle. The next day
the land turned out to be an island which Bellingshausen
named Peter I Island. Fog and ice kept them from landfall so
they continued on for the South Shetlands. On January 28 they were enjoying fine
weather, within the 68th parallel, when once again land was
sighted some 40 miles to the south-southeast. Too much ice
lay between the ships and landfall but a number of mountains
free of snow were sighted. Bellingshausen named his second
discovery Alexander Coast, now known as Alexander Island.
Although not part of the mainland, it is nevertheless
connected to it by a deep wide shelf of ice and had they put
a boat ashore and ventured across this shelf, they would
have arrived on the Antarctic mainland. Sailing on, one week
later they came upon eight English and American sealing
ships in the South Shetlands. This is where Bellingshausen
met a young American, Nathaniel Palmer, who was the captain
of the Hero. Two different accounts of this meeting
exist. According to American Edmund Fanning, Palmer told him
Bellingshausen named the coast "Palmer's Land" in honor of
the boy discoverer; Bellingshausen's own account only
mentions a polite conversation about the weather and sealing
with Palmer returning to his ship afterwards. Contented,
Bellingshausen sailed north and arrived in March at Rio de
Janeiro where they remained until May overhauling the ships.
On August 4, 1821 they dropped anchor at Kronstadt. The
voyage had lasted two years and 21 days. Only three men had
been lost. Russia seemed uncaring about the great
discoveries as some ten years elapsed before
Bellingshausens' works were even published, most of which
remain untranslated. Russia was unimpressed with his
circumnavigation of the continent and thus all interest in
Terra Australis was abandoned until whaling fleets were sent
to the south in 1946. The first Russian scientific base was
established on the mainland during the International
Geophysical Year (1957-58). Bellingshausen
continued to serve his country for another 30 years,
attaining the rank of Admiral. He later became Governor of
Kronstadt. Russia now claims that Bellingshausen was the
true discoverer of the Antarctic mainland which, ironically,
they failed to recognize for 100 years.
After the death of James
Cook in 1779, the European
nations realized little success in their search for the
great southern continent, Terra Australis. In 1819 Czar
Alexander I of Russia authorized an expedition to the south
polar region and thus the search was renewed.