Hostname: page-component-84b7d79bbc-dwq4g Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-26T10:30:46.695Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The supposed discovery of South Georgia by Amerigo Vespucci

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 October 2009

E. W. H. Christie
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

There have been few more controversial figures in the history of exploration than Amerigo Vespucci, and it is therefore necessary to be extremely cautious in deciding whether he did, or did not, discover the island of South Georgia in the year 1501. Humboldt and Mill believed that he might have done so, but thought that, on the whole, his most likely landfall was southern Patagonia or Tierra del Fuego. Matthews, who devoted considerable attention to working out distances and directions, came to the conclusion that Vespucci very probably arrived at South Georgia after leaving the coast of Brazil and sailing south-westwards, while the Australian map of Antarctica, published in Canberra in 1939, and the Antarctic Pilot (London, second edition, 1948) have respectively described this achievement as a probability and as a possibility.

Type
Research Article
Information
Polar Record , Volume 5 , Issue 40 , July 1950 , pp. 560 - 564
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1950

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 Humboldt, Alexandre. Examen critique de Vkistoire de la geographic du nouveau continent… Vol. 5. Paris, 1839.Google Scholar
2 Mill, H. R. The siege of the South Pole. London, 1905.Google Scholar
3 Matthews, L. Harrison. South Georgia. The British Empire's sub-antarctic outpost …. London, 1931.Google Scholar
4 Magnaghi, A. Amerigo Vespucci. Studio critico. Rome, 1926.Google Scholar
5 Pohl, F. J. Amerigo Vespucci. Pilot Major. New York, 1944.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
6 Markham, C. R. Amerigo Vespucci. Letters and other documents illustrative of his career. London, Hakluyt Society, 1894.Google Scholar
7 Prestage, Edgar. The Portuguese pioneers. London, 1933.Google Scholar
8 Levillier, Roberto. Vespucci's third voyage: a new interpretation. Geographical Journal, Vol. 112, Nos. 1–3, 1949, p. 120–22, maps. [Brief report of a lecture given to the Royal Geographical Society.]Google Scholar
9 Roberto, Leviixier. America la bien llamada. Buenos Aires, Editorial Guillermo Kraft, 1948. [Tome 1, La conquista del occidente; Tome 2, Bajo la cruz del sur.]Google Scholar