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Chap. IX.]
SEARCH FOR SUPPOSED LAND.
285
1841
must have supposed he saw it; but having now searched for it at a distance varying from fifty to seventy miles from it to the north, south, east, and west, as well as having sailed directly over its assigned position, we were compelled to infer that it has no real existence.
I have entered thus minutely into the details of our search for this land as recorded in my journal at the time, and in accordance with the report I made to the Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty on the subject immediately after my return to Van Diemen's Land.
It becomes my duty now in justice to Lieutenant Wilkes to give his explanation of the circumstances which led to his placing this range of mountains on the chart of his discoveries which he sent to me; as also to repel the assertion he has made, that we had sailed over land said to have been discovered by our own countryman, Balleny; although it cannot but be a matter of surprise that after so much discussion, and by no means a very temperate one, he has not entered upon the question, nor in any way alluded to the discoveries of Balleny in the Narrative of the United States Exploring Expedition, which has been published by the American government under his direction, but has merely removed the land from his chart of the antarctic continent, with no other notice of it than that "Lieutenant-Commandant Ringgold thought he could discern to the south-east something like distant mountains," and which I should have believed had been