Simultaneously with the Scottish whaling fleet, the Norwegian whaling captain, C. A. Larsen, appears in the regions to the south of the South Shetlands.  It is not too much to say of Captain Larsen that of all those who have visited the Antarctic regions in search of whales, he has unquestionably brought home the best and most abundant scientific results.  To him we owe the discovery of large stretches of the east coast of Graham Land, King Oscar II.  Land, Foyn’s Land, etc.  He brought us news of two active volcanoes, and many groups of islands.  But perhaps the greatest interest attaches to the fossils he brought home from Seymour Island —­ the first to be obtained from the Antarctic regions.

In November, 1894, Captain Evensen in the Hertha succeeded in approaching nearer to Alexander I. Land than either Bellingshausen or Biscoe.  But the search for whales claimed his attention, and he considered it his duty to devote himself to that before anything else.

A grand opportunity was lost:  there can be no doubt that, if Captain Evensen had been free, he would here have had a chance of achieving even better work than he did —­ bold, capable, and enterprising as he is.

The next whaling expedition to make its mark in the South Polar regions is that of the Antarctic, under Captain Leonard Kristensen.  Kristensen was an extraordinarily capable man, and achieved the remarkable record of being the first to set foot on the sixth continent, the great southern land —­ “Antarctica.”  This was at Cape Adare, Victoria Land, in January, 1895.

An epoch-making phase of Antarctic research is now ushered in by the Belgian expedition in the Belgica, under the leadership of Commander Adrien de Gerlache.  Hardly anyone has had a harder fight to set his enterprise on foot than Gerlache.  He was successful, however, and on August 16, 1897, the Belgica left Antwerp.

The scientific staff had been chosen with great care, and Gerlache had been able to secure the services of exceedingly able men.  His second in command, Lieutenant G. Lecointe, a Belgian, possessed every qualification for his difficult position.  It must be remembered that the Belgica’s company was as cosmopolitan as it could be —­ Belgians, Frenchmen, Americans, Norwegians, Swedes, Rumanians, Poles, etc. —­ and it was the business of the second in command to keep all these men together and get the best possible work out of them.  And Lecointe acquitted himself admirably; amiable and firm, he secured the respect of all.

As a navigator and astronomer he was unsurpassable, and when he afterwards took over the magnetic work he rendered great services in this department also.  Lecointe will always be remembered as one of the main supports of this expedition.

Lieutenant Emile Danco, another Belgian, was the physicist of the expedition.  Unfortunately this gifted young man died at an early stage of the voyage —­ a sad loss to the expedition.  The magnetic observations were then taken over by Lecointe.