Presentation of Bellingshausen Biography

The search for the mysterious southern continent was engaged in many sailors. In his attempts to penetrate as close to the South Pole as possible in different years of D. Cook, he announced the inaccessibility of the southern land, calling it "Terra Australius Incognit", the English sailors Waterhaus and Smith; There were no thoughts of ice campaign and Russian sailors. After the round -the -world travels, Captains Kruzenshttern, Kotzubu and Sarychev turned to the city of the king consent; And the expedition had to be equipped in a very short time to have time to sail in the summer of the year.

The flotilla included two ships, completely not intended for polar voyages: “East” and “peaceful”. The purpose of the voyage was to “discover the possible proximity of the Antarctic pole, ... the acquisition of complete knowledge about our globe”, i.e., in the presence of sailing ships that are not adapted for polar shir, there was no point in dreaming of more.

The Ministry of the Sea appointed the head of the expedition of Captain Bellingshausen, who already had extensive experience of distant sea swims behind him. There was a long way to unknown countries. The expedition set the task how to get to the south further to finally resolve the issue of the existence of the southern continent. In early autumn, with a fair wind, ships headed through the Atlantic Ocean to the shores of Brazil.

The weather favored swimming. Rare and weak storms did not violate life on the ships. From the very first days of navigation, scientific observations were carried out, which Bellingshausen and his assistants carefully and in detail entered into the watch magazine. Daily under the leadership of prof. Kazan University of astronomer Simonov officers were engaged in astronomical observations and calculations of the geographical position of the vessel.

At the end of December, Bellingshausen on the future made several attempts to measure the depth of the ocean, but the lot did not reach the bottom. At that time, not a single scientific expedition tried to measure the depth of the ocean. Bellingshausen for many decades was ahead of other researchers in this; Unfortunately, the technical means of the expedition did not allow solving this problem.

Then the expedition met the first floating “Ice Island”. The farther to the south, the more often the giant ice mountains - icebergs began to come across in the way. Bellingshausen wrote: “At 11 a.m. we saw the shore; The cape of it, extending to the north, ended with a high city, which is separated by the isthmus from other mountains.

” Bellingshausen called this land the coast of Alexander 1. This shore is covered with snow, but scree on the mountains and steep cliffs did not have snow. The sudden change of color on the surface of the sea gives the idea that the shore is extensive or at least consists of the wrong part that was before our eyes. ” The land of Alexander 1 is still not sufficiently investigated.

By opening, her finally convinced Bellingshausen that the Russian expedition approached the unknown to the southern mainland.