SOUTH OF CAPE HORN

Still in his early teens, Nathaniel Palmer, of Stonington, Connecticut, ran the blockade during the War of 1812. His daring and seamanship earned him a place as second mate of the Hersilia on an expedition to find new seal rookeries. The voyage was enormously profitable, for the Hersilia made contact with a British craft bent on the same mission -- charting the then unknown Lost Aurora Islands. Subsequently Nat resolved to establish existence of the white land which he alone had glimpsed when the Antarctic mists cleared. On a return trip, Nat Palmer sighted the peninsula which now bears his name, to the embarrassment of an expedition which had searched the southern waters for the imperial Czar of Russia. Palmer was twenty-one at the time of discovery. This trip also yielded new rookeries for the seal hunters. Armstrong Sperry's ability as story teller and illustrator needs no introduction.