Below the Convergence: Voyages Toward Antarctica, 1699-1839 - Softcover

Gurney, Alan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393329046 ISBN 13: 9780393329049

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2007

Synopsis

“A great adventure story.”―Dava Sobel, New York Times Book Review

This wonderfully written book tells of the first Herculean expeditions to Antarctica, from astronomer Edmond Halley’s 1699 voyage in the Paramore to the sealer John Balleny’s 1839 excursion in the Eliza Scott, all in search of land, glory, fur, science, and profit. Life was harsh: crews had poor provisions and inadequate clothing, and scurvy was a constant threat. With unreliable―often homemade―charts, these intrepid explorers sailed in the stormy waters of the Southern Ocean below the Convergence, that sea frontier marking the boundary between the freezing Antarctic waters and the warmer sub-Antarctic seas. These men were the first to discover and exploit a new continent, which was not the verdant southern island they had imagined but an inhospitable expanse of rock and ice, ringed by pack ice and icebergs: Antarctica.
18 illustrations, 15 maps

About this title

About the Author:

Alan Gurney was a former yacht designer and photographer. His books include Compass, The Race to the White Continent, and Below the Convergence: Voyages Toward Antarctica: 1699–1839.

Review:

“Will delight both the armchair traveler and the intellectual tourist.”
- Chicago Tribune

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0393329046
• ISBN 13: 9780393329049
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 327