who was the first person to successfully lead a team to complete a transantarctic crossing by land
History of Antarctica
A long detour to 47 ° 50 ′ S served to show that there was no land connection between New Zealand and Tierra del Fuego . Turning south again , Cook crossed the Antarctic Circle for the third time at 109 ° 30 ′ W before his progress was once again blocked by ice four days later at 71 ° 10 ′ S by 106 ° 54 ′ W . This point , reached on 30 January 1774 , was the farthest south attained in the 18th century . With a great detour to the east , almost to the coast of South America , the expedition regained Tahiti for refreshment . In November 1774 , Cook started from New Zealand and crossed the South Pacific without sighting land between 53 ° and 57 ° S to Tierra del Fuego ; then , passing Cape Horn on 29 December , he rediscovered Roché Island renaming it Isle of Georgia , and discovered the South Sandwich Islands ( named Sandwich Land by him ) , the only ice - clad land he had seen , before crossing the South Atlantic to the Cape of Good Hope between 55 ° and 60 ° . He thereby laid open the way for future Antarctic exploration by exploding the myth of a habitable southern continent . Cook 's most southerly discovery of land lay on the temperate side of the 60th parallel , and he convinced himself that if land lay farther south it was practically inaccessible and of no economic value .
A long detour to 47 ° 50 ′ S served to show that there was no land connection between New Zealand and Tierra del Fuego . Turning south again , Cook crossed the Antarctic Circle for the third time at 109 ° 30 ′ W before his progress was once again blocked by ice four days later at 71 ° 10 ′ S by 106 ° 54 ′ W . This point , reached on 30 January 1774 , was the farthest south attained in the 18th century . With a great detour to the east , almost to the coast of South America , the expedition regained Tahiti for refreshment . In November 1774 , Cook started from New Zealand and crossed the South Pacific without sighting land between 53 ° and 57 ° S to Tierra del Fuego ; then , passing Cape Horn on 29 December , he rediscovered Roché Island renaming it Isle of Georgia , and discovered the South Sandwich Islands ( named Sandwich Land by him ) , the only ice - clad land he had seen , before crossing the South Atlantic to the Cape of Good Hope between 55 ° and 60 ° . He thereby laid open the way for future Antarctic exploration by exploding the myth of a habitable southern continent . Cook 's most southerly discovery of land lay on the temperate side of the 60th parallel , and he convinced himself that if land lay farther south it was practically inaccessible and of no economic value .