Below the Convergence: Voyages Toward Antarctica 1699-1839 [Paperback]

Alan Gurney (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 1998

From astronomer Edmond Halley's 1699 voyage in the Paramore to sealer John Balleny's 1839 excursion in the Eliza Scott, Below the Convergence tells the story of British, American, and Russian expeditions to Antarctica-the fabled Terra Australis Incognita. In search of scientific knowledge, national prestige, and profit, these courageous explorers captured the hearts and attention of their countrymen who longed to hear what lay below the Convergence, the sea frontier marking the boundary between the freezing Antarctic waters and the warmer sub-Antartic seas. The stories of their herculean adventures and discoveries makes for riveting reading and offers an abundant history which, writes Dava Sobel in the New York Times Book Review, "introduces the concept of deep cold with lyrical precision."

Editorial Reviews

Review

Reading about ... shipboard journeys in Below the Convergence summons up again the almost tangible atmosphere, familiar from so many classic narratives, Melville and Marryat and Conrad, Dana and Slocum. It is at once homely and elementally drastic. -- The Los Angeles Times Sunday Book Review, David Craig

About the Author

Alan Gurney is a former yacht designer and photographer living in Suffolk, England. His previous books include Compass and Race to the White Continent. --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (February 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140272607
• ISBN-13: 978-0140272604
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,718,551 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Recommended for anyone with an Antarctic interest, April 9, 2002

By 

Fred Camfield (Vicksburg, MS USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Below the Convergence: Voyages Toward Antarctica 1699-1839 (Paperback)

For whatever reason, recent book reviewers try to relate any nautical book to Patrick O'Brien's fiction. This is akin to relating the taste of any strange mystery meat to the taste of chicken. There is absolutely no relationship between the present book and O'Brien's fiction. One can wonder if some reviewers actually read the books they review. Having said that -

The book provides an interesting overview of early Antarctic exploration, both planned and accidental. There is a chapter on scurvy, the bane of historic long sea voyages, with indications of the various means used for prevention - as usual, politics got in the way of common sense (the British government used lime juice controlled by British interests instead of the more effective lemon juice controlled by Spanish interests) and the government was slow to adopt what was being routinely used in the private sector. There is also a chapter on the problems in finding longitude, and an overview chapter on the Southern Ocean and the Antarctic Convergence.

Accounts of the voyages begin with Edmund Halley's expedition aboard the Paramore in the closing years of the 17th century, then skip forward to the second voyage of James Cook (1772-1775). Sealers began their activities immediately after the American Revolution. One problem with scientific exploration, then as now, was that commercial interests immediately rushed in to exploit any resources discovered, initially decimating the fur seal population. John Nicol in his autobiography (see John Nicol, Mariner) mentions being aboard the Amelia (1791-1792) when they killed and skinned 30,000 seals at the Island of Lopex (Lobos Island in northern Peru). The sealers added some knowledge, but mainly to identify sealing grounds. There are some comments about diet - people commonly ate penguins among other things.

People carrying out research are familiar with dealing with bureaucracies that want proposals two or three years in advance with an indication of what discoveries will be made before the research is conducted. Consequently, real discoveries are often unfunded, i.e., it is work carried out on the side while carrying out other funded work. William Smith commanded the merchant ship Williams on a voyage from Buenos Aires to Valparaiso when he discovered the South Shetland Islands, somewhat by accident, early in 1819 while sailing westward around Cape Horn. On a subsequent voyage around the Horn that same year, he made an unauthorized deviation in his route to go south for further exploration (insurance companies tended to forbid such deviations). After he reported his discoveries, the Royal Navy chartered the Williams later that same year and, under the command of Edward Bransfield, made the first observations of the mountain ranges on the Antarctic Peninsula and sailed a short distance into the Weddell Sea (the British lost Bransfield's journal). The immediate rush of sealers into the area resulted in the slaughtering of an estimated half million seals during the 1820-1821 season. Forty sealing ships visited the islands during the 1821-1822 season and essentially exterminated the remaining seals. William Smith eventually died in poverty in an almshouse.

The book goes on to discuss the voyages of James Clark Ross, James Weddell, and others up through 1839, with some mention of later expeditions. It provides a good description of the early Antarctic explorers and their voyages through the ice and freezing temperatures.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars scholarly prose which does not read like scholarship, November 16, 1998

By 

Rick Hunter (Malone, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Below the Convergence: Voyages Toward Antarctica 1699-1839 (Paperback)

Spritely writing which is scholarly without reading like scholarship gives special pleasure. For this reason, I give my unqualified recommendation and praise to Alan Gurney's Below the Convergence: Voyages Toward Antarctica 1699-1839. The short author's biography describes Gurney as a "yacht designer and photographer living on the Islay of Islay in Scotland," but this description either sells him short or demonstrates convincingly his remarkable book. That the author is a sailor is obvious. Gurney begins his book with separate chapters reminding the reader what sailing (as opposed to steaming) before chronometers entailed -- finding longitude was an uncertain (and perilous) business, and death and disability from scurvy were common. With this by way of background, Gurney goes on to describe the voyages of Edmond Halley, James Cook, and other lesser-known explorers and merchant sailors in the southern hemisphere. Gurney ably draws upon both the primary sources (logs, letters) left by the sailors, and places them in both historical and scientific context for the modern reader. I learned a great deal here, through pedagogy both (seemingly) effortless and wise. (Note: just in case you were wondering, the "convergence" is a "definite biogeograhical frontier", weaving between 50 and 60 degrees S, where two bodies of water of differing temperature and salinity converge, separating differing forms of planktonic life and bottom sediment).

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A gripping historical tale of the Southern Ocean, April 8, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Below the Convergence: Voyages Toward Antarctica 1699-1839 (Paperback)

Gurney's Below the Convergence is a very well written book that provides a wonderful historical back drop for the later feats of Scott, Shackleton, and Amundsen. Gurney follows the 18th and early 19th century expeditions into the Southern Ocean by the British, Americans, and Russians and imparts in the reader a true feeling of the adventure and misery of those hearty men. Not content to merely cite facts, Gurney uses these facts to spin an exciting tale of imperial discovery and commercial exploitation of the Southern Ocean.

After reading Huntford's Shakleton, pick up this book and you will discover that perhaps Shakleton, for all his incredible feats, was not so far above the norm in courage and valor when compared to his Antarctic predecessors.