HOUSE OF COMMONS.
Islands (Southern Ocean). Copy of the Correspondence between the Lords of the Admiralty and the Committee of Lloyd’s, with respect to Her Majesty’s Ships calling at the Islands between the Cape of Good Hope and Australia, to relieve those Shipwrecked upon
WITH AN IMPORTANT MAP OF THE ANTARCTIC
An excellent copy of a hitherto unrecorded British Parliamentary paper, the map to which shows the Antarctic (the map is separately noted by Renard, but not the paper itself).
The report is ostensibly concerned with the disappearance of three ships en route from Britain to Australia. The first letter, from the Secretary at Lloyd’s to the Lords of the Admiralty, suggests that a ship be sent from the Australia station to inspect the Crozet and other small islands, on which survivors of shipwrecks might find shelter.
The reply from the Lords, by Rear-Admiral Robert Hall, proposes that such examinations be made by ships en route from the Cape to Australia. He also recommends that shipping avoid “going too far south, and making the run amongst icebergs and floating ice”, and by way of illustrating his remarks offers the accompanying map as an illustration. The map itself is entitled “Ice Chart of the Southern Hemisphere”, and measures approx. 640 by 850mm. Based on observations from the voyages of Cook, Bellingshausen, Weddell, Foster, Biscoe, Balleny, d’Urville, Wilkes and Ross, it is corrected to October 1874 and shows the extent of icebergs year-round as well as the known features of the Antarctic.
cf. Renard 513 (map).
