Four ships equipped for a whaling voyage were outfitted by Kinnes, a whaling company owner from Dundee, to search the Weddell Sea for the right whales reported by Ross as described in the Grays' pamphlet NEW GROUNDS IN THE SOUTHERN SEAS. The expedition's commercial labors would, Kinnes hoped, pay for the expedition with the prospect of profits from new whaling grounds the main enticement. This was an important whaling expedition to the Weddell Sea, the first of its kind since 1843. This expedition helped to revive an interest in the Antarctic.

Although the Antarctic ice pack and some offshore islands had been sighted and even landed upon briefly as early as the 1820s, it was not until an eccentric Anglo-Norwegian explorer, Carsten F. Borchgrevink, went ashore in 1895 that a human being set foot on the Antarctic continent. Borchgrevink, snubbed by the British establishment, had stolen a march on several planned competing expeditions from Germany and Scandinavia. ø Borchgrevink returned to Antarctica in 1899 with a party that was the first to winter over on the continent. Regrettably, bad weather and unscalable mountains limited their forays inland. Borchgrevink's survival was proof that with adequate supplies, the Antarctic winter was survivable, and that with a better geographic position, the enormous unknown of the continent could be investigated. ø Borchgrevink galvanized the British geographical authorities who had come to consider polar exploration their exclusive province. Led by Sir Clements Markham of the Royal Geographic Society, the British keenly felt his blow to their national pride delivered by an explorer they regarded as an arrogant upstart. The RGS pushed forward with its plans, and a tragic competition to be the first to reach the South Pole was set in motion between the British and the Scandinavians. ø This work is anøaccount of the first tentative human gropings in Antarctica, concentrating on the coalescing of official and popular attitudes that later resulted in the polar races of Robert Falcon Scott and Roald Amundsen, which dominate the story of the "Heroic Era" of Antarctic exploration, from 1901 to 1922.

A difficult man, a brilliant scientist, a brave explorer. William Speirs Bruce's contribution to polar research is greater than that of Scott or Shackleton.

The world’s most isolated continent has spawned some of the most unusual words in the English language. In the space of a mere century, a remarkable vocabulary has evolved to deal with the extraordinary environment and living organisms of the Antarctic and subantarctic. Here, for the first time, is a complete guide to the origin and definitions of Antarctic words. Like other historical dictionaries, The Antarctic Dictionary gives the reader quotations for each word. These quotations are the life-blood of the dictionary — more than 15 000 quotations from about 1000 different sources give the reader a unique insight into the way the language of Antarctica has evolved. The reader will find out what it means to be slotted, the shortcomings of homers, the joys of a donga and the hazards of a growler. The Antarctic Dictionary has been meticulously researched, and will appeal to all those who have been to the frozen continent or have ever dreamed of going there. It will also appeal to those fascinated by the development of language. With a forward by Sir Ranulph Fiennes.

For centuries it was suspected that there must be an undiscovered continent in the southern hemisphere. But explorers failed to find one. On his second voyage to the Pacific, Captain Cook sailed further south than any of his rivals but still failed to sight land. It was not until 1820 that the continent's frozen coast was finally sighted. Territorial rivalry intensified in the 1840s when British, American, and French expeditions sailed south to chart further portions of the continent that had come to be called Antarctica. For the nearly two centuries since, the race to claim exclusive possession of Antarctica has gripped the imagination of the world. Antarctica: A Biography is the first ever major international history of this forbidding continent - from the eighteenth century voyages of discovery to the fierce rivalries of today, as governments, scientists, environmentalists, and oil companies compete for control. On one level it is the story of explorers battling the elements in the most hostile place on earth as they strive for personal triumph, commercial gain, and national glory. On a deeper level, it is the story of nations seeking to incorporate the Antarctic into their own national stories - and to claim its frozen wastes as their own.