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‘To unbar the gates of the South’: Maury's 1860–1861 proposals for Antarctic cooperation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 December 2010

Rip Bulkeley
Rip Bulkeley*
Affiliation:
38 Lonsdale Road, Oxford, OX2 7EW (rip@igy50.net)
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Abstract

In 1860 and 1861 Commander Matthew Fontaine Maury USN, (1806–1873), put forward the first ever proposal for international cooperation in polar research. Maury's initiative also prompted the first ever international correspondence about polar cooperation, fourteen years before Carl Weyprecht launched his better known proposal. For several reasons however, including the outbreak of the American Civil War, Maury's Antarctic project did not succeed. Maury's proposal was published in three languages, but the better known of its two English versions was prepared from text that had already been copied once or twice by hand. It suffered numerous minor errors and extensive editorial changes. To mark its 150th anniversary, Maury's autograph manuscript, now in the British National Archives, has been transcribed as accurately as possible, with his original wording, spellings and (lack of) punctuation. A commentary explains the origins and outcome of the project.

Type
Research Article
Information
Polar Record , Volume 47 , Issue 4 , October 2011 , pp. 310 - 326
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2010

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