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"The island," says Weddell, speaking of South Georgia, "is about ninety-six miles long, and its mean breadth about ten. It is so indented with bays, that in several places, where they are on opposite sides, they are so deep as to make the distance from one side to the other very small.
In 1820-23 Weddell visited the South Shetlands, south of Cape Horn, and found an active volcano, even amidst the extreme cold of that district. He reached as far south as 74°, but failed to come across land in that district. In 1839 Bellany discovered the islands named after him, with a volcano twelve thousand feet high, and another still active on Buckle Island.
A Weddell seal and a crab-eater seal were noticed on the floes, but we did not pause to secure fresh meat. It was important that we should make progress towards our goal as rapidly as possible, and there was reason to fear that we should have plenty of time to spare later on if the ice conditions continued to increase in severity.
Edgar Poe, every one will allow, gives free rein to his fancy at this point. No navigator had ever reached latitudes so high not even James Weddell of the British Navy, who did not get beyond the seventy-fourth parallel in 1822.
"Two sledging parties will operate from the base on the Weddell Sea. One will travel westwards towards Graham Land, making observations, collecting geological specimens, and proving whether there are mountains in that region linked up with those found on the other side of the Pole.
The Weddell Sea ship will endeavour to trace the unknown coast-line of Graham Land, and from both the vessels, with their scientific staffs, important results may be expected. "The several shore parties and the two ships will thus carry out geographical and scientific work on a scale and over an area never before attempted by any one Polar expedition.
The most daring, or, perhaps I ought to say, the most lucky of those discoverers who had preceded the Halbrane, under the command of Captain Len Guy, in the Antarctic seas, had not gone beyond Kemp, the sixty-sixth parallel; Ballerry, the sixty-seventh; Biscoe, the sixty-eighth; Bellinghausen and Morrell, the seventieth; Cook, the seventy-first; Weddell, the seventy-fourth.
From Alexander W. Weddell, Virginia Historical Portraiture "The Right Worshipful Sir Thomas Smith, of London, Knight, one of his Maiesties Councell for Virginia, and Treasurer for the Colonie, and Gouernour of the Companies of the Moscovia and East India Merchants" From the Original Portrait by an Unknown Artist, now in the possession of The Skinners' Company, London.
But the they placed the depots in the required positions, and if the Weddell Sea party had been able to make the crossing of the Antarctic continent, the stores and fuel would have been waiting for us where we expected to find them. The position on October 9 was that the nine men at Hut Point had with them the stores required for the depots and for their own maintenance throughout the summer.
He was one of the early proprietors of the Weddell House, and upon his retirement from the business, he established the omnibus local transit for passengers and baggage at a uniform rate of charge, which system has been generally adopted in the principal cities in the country.
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