Morning Star

Secular News of the Day

Discovery of a Continent.

The Vincennes, one of the vessels of the exploring squadron, sent out by the U. S. government a year ago, has discovered a continent in the antarctic ocean. Land was first seen on the morning of 19th of Jan. in latitude 64 deg. 20 min. south, longitude 154 18 east. The Vincennes ran down the coast from 154 deg. 18 to 169 deg. 45 east longitude, about 1700 miles, within a short distance of the land, often so near as to get sounding with a few fathoms of line, during which time she was constantly surrounded by ice-islands and bergs, and experienced many heavy gales of wind, exposing her constantly to shipwreck. It is said that the same continent was discovered by a French ship on the same day, so that there is likely to be a dispute as to who were the first discoverers. It is not worth quarreling about, however, as it is almost as cold as Greenland there, and probably it will never be of any benefit to mankind. A correspondent of the N. Y. Journal of Commerce on board the Vincennes writes:

"For my part, no inducements could be held out that would make me volunteer to return there, unless one of the other vessels should have been unfortunate enough to be wrecked, which God forbid. We were unfortunate in not being able to land, take possession, and plant the stripes and stars: When the weather permitted us to do so, no boat could land,—the land being very high, covered with snow, and sloping gradually to the water, where it was terminated by ice, descending one hundred or two hundred feet perpendicularly.

The weather was, part of the time, good; and part, blowing from fresh to heavy gales, with thick snow storms, making the navigation extremely hazardous, on account of the ice-bergs by which we were generally surrounded. I have at times counted 100 large ones from the deck, without the aid of a glass, taking no notice of small ones."