Below the Convergence: Voyages Towards Antarctica, 1699-1839 by Alan Gurney
Pimlico / Random House, London, 1998
First published W.W.Norton Co. Ltd., 1997
Provides accounts of the early voyages in the Southern Ocean.
“The tantalising theory of a huge southern continent, Terra Australis Incognita, had haunted the imaginations of ountless geographers throughout history. Not until the second of his great voyages in 1773 did Captain James Cook lay the theory to rest.”
“This wonderfully written book tells the story of British, American and Russian expeditions, from the astronomer Edmond Halley’s voyage in the Paramore in 1699 to the sealer John Balleny’s 1839 voyage in the Eliza Scott, all in search of land, fur or elephant seals. These were voyages for science, national prestige an profit. Life was incredibly harsh: crews had poor provisions and inadequate clothing and were constantly threatened by scurvy. Often they had to make their own charts as they sailed the stormy waters of the Southern Ocean below the Convergence.”
“These seamen were the first to discover and exploit a new continent, which was not the verdant southern island they imagined but an inhospitable expanse of rock and ice, ringed by pack ice and icebergs – Antarctica.”
As well as direct accounts of expeditions is has background chapters on the problem of longitude and on scurvey.
A review can be found at: http://www.captaincooksociety.com/home/detail/below-the-convergence-voyages-toward-antarctica-1699-1839-gurney-alan-2007-first-published-1997