The Vostok , Captain Bellinghausen, and the Mirni , commanded by Lieutenant Lazarew, left Cronstadt on the 3rd July, 1819, en route for the Antarctic Ocean. On the 15th December Southern Georgia was sighted, and seven days later an island was discovered in the south-east, to which the name of Traversay was given, and the position of which was fixed at 52 degrees 15 minutes S. lat., and 27 degrees 21 minutes W. long., reckoning from the Paris meridian.
Continuing their easterly course in S. lat. 60 degrees for 400 miles as far as W. long. 187 degrees, the explorers then bore south to S. lat. 70 degrees, where their further progress was arrested by a barrier of ice.
Bellinghausen, nothing daunted, tried to cut his way eastwards into the heart of the Polar Circle, but at 44 degrees E. long,
