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P O L A R E X P L O R AT I O N : C O U R AG E A N D C O N T ROV E R S Y

There were clues that it did.Voyages in the 1500s and 1600s pushed farther and farther south, closer to terra australis incog- nita , the “unknown southern land.” A lot of that travel was not by choice. Terrible storms blew ships off course, into the island chains surrounding Antarctica. Sailors came back with stories about mountains made of snow, and large sheets of ice in the ocean. Still, no one had seen the Antarctic continent as of the late 1700s.And what had been seen didn’t seem very promising.

Sailors venturing in the far southern oceans in wooden sailing ships braved high winds and ice floes, but they did get to meet penguins.