Rothschild Island

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Rothschild Island (69°36′S 72°33′W) is an island 24 miles long, mainly ice covered but surmounted by prominent peaks of Desko Mountains, 5 miles west of the north part of Alexander Island in the north entrance to Wilkins Sound.

The island was sighted from a distance by the French Antarctic Expedition, 1908-10, and named by Charcot in honor of Baron Edouard de Rothschild (1868-1949), head of the Rothschild banking family of France and president of de Rothschild Frères. In subsequent exploration by the British Graham Land Expedition (BGLE), 1934-37, the feature was believed to be a mountain connected to Alexander Island, but its insularity was reaffirmed by the US Antarctic Service (USAS), 1939-41, who photographed and roughly mapped the island from the air. It was mapped in detail from air photos taken by the Ronne Antarctic Research Expedition (RARE), 1947-48, by Searle of the Falkland Islands Dependencies Survey (FIDS) in 1960, and from U.S. satellite imagery taken in 1974.

This article is based on a United States Geological Survey gazetteer.