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The Southern Cross Expedition, officially known as the British Antarctic Expedition 1898–1900, was the first British venture of the Heroic Age of Antarctic Exploration, and the forerunner of the more celebrated journeys of Robert Falcon Scott and Ernest Shackleton. The brainchild of the Norwegian-born, half-British explorer and schoolmaster Carsten Borchgrevink, it was the first expedition to over-winter on the Antarctic mainland, the first to visit the Great Ice Barrier since James Clark Ross in 1839–43, and the first to effect a landing on the Barrier's surface. It also pioneered the use of dogs and sledges in Antarctic travel. The expedition was privately financed by the British magazine publisher Sir George Newnes. Borchgrevink's party sailed in the ship ''Southern Cross'', and spent the southern winter of 1899 at Cape Adare, the northwest extremity of the Ross Sea coastline. Here they carried out an extensive programme of scientific observations, although opportunities for inland exploration were severely restricted by the mountainous and glaciated terrain surrounding the base. In January 1900 the party left Cape Adare in ''Southern Cross'' to explore the Ross Sea, following the route taken by Ross sixty years earlier. They reached the Great Ice Barrier, where a team of three made the first sledge journey on the Barrier surface, during which a new Farthest South record latitude was established at 78°50′S. On its return to England the expedition was coolly received by London's geographical establishment which was resentful of the pre-emption of a role they envisaged for their own National Antarctic (Discovery) Expedition. There were also questions about Borchgrevink's leadership qualities, and criticism of the limited amounts of scientific information which the expedition provided. Despite the groundbreaking achievements in Antarctic survival and travel, Borchgrevink was never accorded the heroic status of Scott or Shackleton, and his expedition was soon forgotten in the dramas which surrounded these and other Heroic Age explorers. However, Roald Amundsen, conqueror of the South Pole in 1911, acknowledged that Borchgrevink's expedition had removed the greatest obstacles to Antarctic travel, and had opened the way for all the expeditions that followed. == Background == Born in Oslo in 1864 to a Norwegian father and an English mother, Carsten Borchgrevink emigrated to Australia in 1888, where he worked on survey teams in the interior before accepting a provincial schoolteaching appointment in New South Wales.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 url = http://www.adb.online.anu.edu.au/biogs/A070353b.htm )〕 In 1894 he joined a commercial expedition, led by Henryk Bull in the whaler ''Antarctic'', which penetrated Antarctic waters and reached Cape Adare, the western portal to the Ross Sea. A party including Bull and Borchgrevink briefly landed there and claimed to be the first men to set foot on the Antarctic continent—although the American sealer John Davis believed he had landed on the Antarctic Peninsula in 1821.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 url = http://www.heritage-antarctica.org/english/forgotten-explorer/ )〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】 url = http://www.south-pole.com/p0000052.htm )〕 They also visited Possession Island in the Ross Sea, leaving a message in a tin box as proof of their journey.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 url = http://www.south-pole.com/p0000087.htm ) p. 3〕 Borchgrevink was convinced that the Cape Adare location, with its huge penguin rookery providing a ready supply of fresh food and blubber, could serve as a base at which a future expedition could overwinter and subsequently explore the Antarctic interior.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 url = http://www.anta.canterbury.ac.nz/resources/sth_cross/intro.html ) (Introduction)〕〔Preston, pp. 14–16〕 Determined that he would lead such an expedition himself, after his return from Cape Adare Borchgrevink spent much of the next three years attempting to gain financial backing in Australia and England. Despite some encouragement from the Royal Geographical Society (RGS), whose International Congress he addressed in 1895, he was initially unsuccessful.〔(【引用サイトリンク】 url = http://www.south-pole.com/p0000087.htm ) p. 1〕 The RGS was harbouring plans of its own for a large-scale National Antarctic Expedition (which eventually transpired as the ''Discovery'' Expedition 1901–04) and was in search of funds; Borchgrevink was regarded by RGS president Sir Clements Markham as a foreign interloper and a rival for funding.〔 However, Borchgrevink eventually managed to persuade publisher Sir George Newnes (whose business rival Alfred Harmsworth was backing the RGS venture) to meet the full cost of his expedition, some £40,000 (approximately £ in ).〔Jones, p. 59〕〔(【引用サイトリンク】 url = http://www.measuringworth.com/uscompare/ )〕 This gift infuriated Markham and the RGS, since Newnes's donation, had it come their way, would have been enough "to get the National Expedition on its legs".〔(【引用サイトリンク】 url = http://www.south-pole.com/p0000087.htm ) p. 2〕 Newnes stipulated that Borchgrevink's expedition must sail under the British flag, and be styled the British Antarctic Expedition. Borchgrevink readily agreed to this, even though only two of the entire expedition party were British.〔Jones, pp. 59–60. Another member of the shore party, Louis Bernacchi, was Australian; the remainder were all Scandinavian.〕 This increased the hostility and contempt of Markham,〔Crane, p. 74〕 who chastised RGS librarian Hugh Robert Mill for attending the Southern Cross Expedition launch.〔 There, Mill had toasted the success of the expedition in stirring terms, calling it "a reproach to human enterprise" that there were parts of the earth that man had never attempted to reach. He hoped that this reproach would be lifted through "the munificence of Sir George Newnes and the courage of Mr Borchgrevink".〔 Borchgrevink, p. 25〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Southern Cross Expedition」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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