Antarctic Gallery

Oronce Fines world map, 1531

Oronce Fine's world map. Map of the world's northern and southern hemispheres by the French mathematician and cartographer Oronce Fine (1494-1555). Published in 1531 as A New and Complete Description of the World, this is a double polar cordiform (heart-shaped) projection. It shows an unknown southern continent, Terra Australis, and excludes most of the Americas. The text box names the publisher (Hermannus Venraed), gives Fine's Latin name (Orontius Fineus), and mentions the Ancient Greek geographers (Ptolemy, Eudoxus, and Erastothenes), whose accounts Fine had tried to reconcile with the new discoveries being made

© LIBRARY OF CONGRESS, GEOGRAPHY AND MAP DIVISION/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

The Terra Nova of Scotts Antarctic Expedition

The ship Terra Nova - the vessel used by Robert Falcon Scott (1868 -1912) for his South Polar Expedition in 1911-12. Built originally for the Dundee whaling and sealing fleet (launched 1884), the Terra Nova was purchased from Bowring Brothers Limited for the British Antarctic Expedition, known also as the Terra Nova Expedition, for the sum of 12, 500. Reinforced from bow to stern with seven feet of oak to protect against the Antarctic ice pack, she sailed from Cardiff on 15 June 1910 under overall command of now Captain Scott, who described her as "a wonderfully fine ice ship.... As she bumped the floes with mighty shocks, crushing and grinding a way through some, twisting and turning to avoid others, she seemed like a living thing fighting a great fight."

© Mary Evans Picture Library 2015 - https://copyrighthub.org/s0/hub1/creation/maryevans/MaryEvansPictureID/10282554

Earth

Earth. Satellite image of the Earth, centred on Antarctica. The South Pole is at centre. Water is blue, vegetation is green, arid areas are brown, and snow and ice are white. Both land and ocean floor topography are shown. Antarctica is a frozen continent, permanently covered in snow and ice. Surrounding Antarctica are the waters of the Southern Ocean, mixing with the Atlantic Ocean (upper centre), the Pacific Ocean (lower left) and the Indian Ocean (centre right). Around the edge of the hemisphere is New Zealand (lower centre), Australia (lower right), and the southern parts of Africa (upper right, the island of Madagascar is also seen) and South America (upper left)

© PLANETOBSERVER/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY