New South Greenland

**New South Greenland**, which is also known as '''Morrell's Land'*, was an appearance of land recorded by the American captain Benjamin Morrell.  Morrel reported the sighting on the schooner *Wasp'' in , during a seal hunting and exploration voyage in the Weddell Sea area of Antarctica. He provided precise coordinates and a description of a coastline. Morrell claimed to have sailed along the coastline for more than . The Weddell Sea is in the Antarctic. Because of icebergs, it was difficult to navigate, and few people did. The sighting was never investigated properly, at the time. Expeditions to Antarctica in the early 20th century proved that there was no land at the positions recorded by Morrell.

At the time of Morrell's voyage the Weddell Sea had not been named and its geography and coastline was almost entirely unknown. This made the sighting plausible at the start. Morrell made obvious errors when he told about the new sighting. He also had the reputation of liking to invent new stories. These two aspects made many people sceptical. In  the German explorer Wilhelm Filchner's ship *Deutschland* was blocked by ice in the Weddel Sea and drifted into the area, where Morrell had reported the new land. Filchcher searched for the land, but found no trace of it. A sounding of the sea bottom revealed more than  of water, with no land nearby. Three years later, trapped in the same waters with his ship *Endurance*, Ernest Shackleton was able by similar means to confirm the land's non-existence.

Different explanations for Morell's error have been suggested. One of them is that Morrell wanted to deceive. Morrell describes his sighting briefly, and seeks no personal credit or glory from the discovery. In his narrative, he gives all credit to his fellow sealing captain, Robert Johnson, for finding and naming the land two years earlier. Morrell may have been honestly mistaken, through miscalculation of his ship's position or by misremembering detail when writing the account after nine years. He may have made the common error of confusing distant icebergs with land, or been misled by the distorting effects of Antarctic mirage.  In 1843 the distinguished British naval explorer James Clark Ross reported possible land in a position close to Morrell's; this land, too, was later proven not to exist.

## Voyage of the *Wasp*, 1822–23 
### First phase, June 1822 to March 1823 
In the early 19th century the geography of Antarctica was almost completely unknown, but occasional sightings of land had been recorded. Benjamin Morrell sailed to the South Sandwich Islands. Morrel was appointed commander of the schooner *Wasp* for a two-year voyage of sealing, trading and exploration in the Antarctic seas and the southern Pacific Ocean in 1822.  In addition to his sealing duties Morrell had, as he put it, "discretionary powers to prosecute new discoveries."

*Wasp* sailed south from New York on  1822.  She reached the Falkland Islands late in October, after which Morrell spent 16 days in fruitless searches for the nonexistent Aurora Islands, before heading for South Georgia, where the ship anchored on . In his account Morrell wrongly records the position of this anchorage, placing it in open sea about  south-west of the island's coastline. Morrell then attempted to take the ship southwards. He reached thick ice around  60°S and decided to turn northeast towards the Kerguelen Islands where he anchored on . From this point, according to his own account, Morrell decided to take advantage of strong easterly winds, and made a rapid passage westward back to the Greenwich meridian, 0°. His account is light on details, but indicates that a distance of more than  was covered in 23&nbsp;days. The credibility of this claim of such fast, direct travel in ice-infested waters has been widely disputed, particularly as Morrell quotes southerly latitudes during the voyage  which later proved to be at least 100&nbsp;miles inside the then undiscovered Antarctic continental mainland. Finding the sea remarkably free of ice, Morrell advanced to 70°14'S before turning north-westward on . This retreat, Morrell says, was due to the ship's lack of fuel; otherwise, he claims, in these open waters he could have taken the ship to 85°, or perhaps to the Pole itself. These words are very similar to those used by the British explorer James Weddell to describe his own experiences in the same area, a month earlier. This has led historians to believe that Morrel may have copied the section from Weddel's.

### Sighting of land 
, who claimed to have sighted New South Greenland.]]
At 2 pm on 15 March, as *Wasp* cruised north-east in the sea that would later bear Weddell's name, Morrell records: "land was seen from the masthead, bearing west, distance 3 leagues" (about nine miles, 14&nbsp;km). His account continues: "At half past  we were close on with the body of land to which Captain Johnson had given the name of New South Greenland". Robert Johnson, a former captain of the *Wasp*, had made an exploratory voyage along the western coast of the Antarctic peninsula in 1821. Johnson had called it "New South Greenland". Morrell casually referred to Johnston's description. This indicates that Morrell assumed that the land he was seeing was in fact the east coast of the peninsula. At the time he wrote this, his position was about 14 degrees east of that peninsula. The geographical features of the peninsula were not known at the time of Morrell's voyage.  Morrell describes seal hunting activities continuing along this coast during the remainder of the day. On the following morning  sealing resumed as the ship moved slowly southward, and continued until Morrell called a halt "because of shortage of water and season far advanced". Polar historian Robert Headland of the Scott Polar Research Institute has suggested various reasons for these false sightings, ranging from "too much rum" to deliberate hoaxes designed to lure rival ships away from good sealing grounds. Some  may have been of large ice masses that were carrying rocks and other glacial debris—dirty ice can appear  similar to land. It is also possible that some of these lands existed, but later became submerged after volcanic eruptions. Other sightings may have been of actual land, wrongly located through observational errors due to chronometer failure, bad weather or simple incompetence.

## Searches for Morrell's land 
Doubt was cast over the existence of New South Greenland when, in 1838, the French explorer Jules Dumont d'Urville sailed over the position of Morrell's "north cape", but saw no indication of land. This evidence, and the general nature of Morrell's account—its obvious errors, and his reputation as a braggart "as great&nbsp;... as any hero of autobiographical romance" in the words of British geographer Hugh Robert Mill, led many geographers thereafter to ignore his claims. This scepticism remained even after Sir James Clark Ross reported an appearance of land in 1843, not far from Morrell's alleged observation: Ross's sighting was occasionally proffered as supportive of Morrell's claim. There was no further penetration of the Weddell Sea until 1903, when William Speirs Bruce took *Scotia* to 74°1'S, but in a sector of the sea which did not bring him close to Morrell's or Ross's sightings.  Bruce was, however, generally well-disposed towards Morrell, writing that his claims should not be rejected until absolutely disproved.

The first determined search for New South Greenland came during the Second German Antarctic Expedition, 1911–13, under Wilhelm Filchner. The expedition's ship, *Deutschland*, had become trapped in heavy sea ice while attempting to establish a shore base at Vahsel Bay. Her subsequent north-westerly drift had, by mid-, brought her to a position  east of Morrell's recorded sighting. Filchner left the ship on  and, with two companions and sufficient provisions for three weeks, sledged westward across the sea ice in search of Morrell's land. Daylight was limited to two or three hours a day, and temperatures fell to −31&nbsp;°F (−35&nbsp;°C),  making travel difficult. In these conditions the group covered , taking frequent sightings.

Although Filchner's and Shackleton's investigations and observations were accepted as conclusive proof that New South Greenland was a myth, there remained the question of Sir James Ross's reported appearance of land in a position around 65°S, 47°W. Ross's reputation was sufficient for this possibility to be taken seriously, and for his alleged sighting to be recorded on maps and Admiralty charts. In 1922 Frank Wild, leading the Shackleton-Rowett Expedition aboard *Quest* after Shackleton's death early in the expedition, investigated the location of Ross's sighting. Nothing was seen; prevented by ice conditions from reaching the exact spot, Wild took a sounding at 64°11'S, 46°4'W, which revealed  of water. This showed that no land was near.

## Opinions and theories 
According to W.J. Mills, Morrell had the reputation among his contemporaries as "the biggest liar in the Southern Ocean". Nevertheless he concedes that "a man may be ignorant, boastful and obscure, and yet have done a solid piece of work". Canadian geographer Paul Simpson-Housley had a more sympathetic approach. Although dubious about much of Morrell's account, Simpson-Housley suggests that the speeds claimed for the western journey, though fast, are not impossible.  He believes that the claimed farthest south in the Weddell Sea, queried by Mill,   is entirely plausible, given that James Weddell had sailed four degrees further south just a month earlier. In the relatively few pages devoted to the Antarctic, Morrell's account of his discovery is brief and entirely matter-of-fact, crediting it to Captain Johnson two years earlier rather than to himself. despite its being 14° further west from position of the New South Greenland sighting. Gould says that the peninsula's eastern coast corresponds very closely with the stretch of coastline described by Morrell. This theory supposes that Morrell miscalculated the ship's position, perhaps because he lacked the chronometer necessary for proper navigational observation. Gould maintains that a "balance of evidence" shows that what Morrell saw was the Foyn coast.
, a form of superior mirage, which distorts ice or distant coastlines so they might appear as islands with tall cliffs.]]
Filchner's view that the supposed sighting of New South Greenland could be explained by a mirage is echoed by Simpson-Housley. He suggests that Morrell and his crew saw a superior mirage. In his expedition account *South*, Shackleton gives a description of a Fata Morgana observed on  1915, coincidentally as his ship *Endurance* drifted close to the recorded position of New South Greenland: "The distant pack is thrown up into towering barrier-like cliffs, which are reflected in blue lakes and lanes of water at their base. Great white and golden cities of Oriental appearance at close intervals along these cliff-tops indicate distant bergs&nbsp;... The lines rise and fall, tremble, dissipate, and reappear in an endless transformation scene". He then wrote his *Narrative of Four Voyages*, which was published the following year. He attempted to resume his seafaring career, seeking employment with the London-based shipping firm of Enderby Brothers, but his reputation had preceded him and he was rejected. Morrell also sought to join Dumont D'Urville's expedition to the Weddell Sea in 1837, but his services were again declined. He reportedly died in 1839, and is commemorated by Morrell Island, 59°27'S, 27°19'W,  an alternative name for Thule Island in the Southern Thule sub-group of the South Sandwich Islands. Robert Johnson, who coined the name New South Greenland, disappeared with his ship in 1826, while investigating the Antarctic waters in the vicinity  of what would later be known as the Ross Sea.

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