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Compass chronicles the misadventures of those who attempted to perfect the magnetic compass--so precious to sixteenth-century seamen that, by law, any man found tampering with it had his hand pinned to the mast with a dagger. From the time man first took to the seas until only one thousand years ago, sight and winds were the sailor's only navigational aids. It was not until the development of the compass that maps and charts could be used with any accuracy--even so, it would be hundreds of years and thousands of shipwrecks before the marvelous instrument was perfected. And its...

In the 1830s, the forbidding Antarctic region represented the ultimate mystery. The prospect of discovering a lucrative whaling ground made this uncharted and untapped region especially enticing. Three expeditions to the pole were launched simultaneously by the United States, France, and Britain, each vying to be the first to venture farther south than any vessel had ever sailed before. These expeditions paved the way for the explorers, traders, and whalers of what was to become known as the "Heroic Age" of Antarctic exploration. The Race to the White Continent is a captivating account of...

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...