"This adventurous expedition surpassed all previous ones, alike in the number and gravity of the dangers incurred, and the extent of the results of every kind obtained. An iron will prevented me from ever yielding to any obstacle. My mind once made up to die or to succeed, I was free from any hesitation or uncertainty. Twenty times I saw the _Astrolabe_ on the eve of destruction without once losing hope of her salvation. A thousand times did I risk the very lives of my companions in order to achieve the object of my instructions, and I can assert that for two consecutive years we daily incurred more real perils than we should have done in the longest ordinary voyage. My brave and honourable officers were not blind to the dangers to which I daily exposed them, but they kept silence, and nobly fulfilled their duty." From this admirable harmony of purpose and devotion resulted a mass of discoveries and observations in every branch of human knowledge, of all of which an exact account was given by Rossel, Cuvier, Geoffrey St. Hilaire, Desfontaines, and others, all competent and disinterested judges. CHAPTER III. POLAR EXPEDITIONS. Bellinghausen, yet another Russian explorer--Discovery of the islands of Traversay, Peter I., and Alexander I.--The whaler, Weddell--The Southern Orkneys--New Shetland--The people of Tierra del Fuego--John Biscoe and the districts of Enderby and Graham--Charles Wilkes and the Antarctic Continent--Captain Balleny--Dumont d'Urville's expedition in the _Astrolabe_ and the _Zelee_--Coupvent Desbois and the Peak of Teneriffe--The Straits of Magellan--A new post-office shut in by ice-- Louis Philippe's Land--Across Oceania--Adelie and Clarie Lands--New Guinea and Torres Strait--Return to France--James Clark Rosset-- Victoria. We have already had occasion to speak of the Antarctic regions, and the explorations made there in the seventeenth, and at the end of the eighteenth century, by various navigators, nearly all Frenchmen, amongst whom we must specially note La Roche, discoverer of New Georgia, in 1675, Bouvet, Kerguelen, Marion, and Crozet. The name of Antarctic is given to all the islands scattered about the ocean which are called after navigators, as well as those of Prince Edward, the Sandwich group, New Georgia, &c.