Snow Hill Island

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Snow Hill Island (64°28′S, 57°12′W) is an almost completely snowcapped island, 20 miles (32 km) long and 6 miles (10 km) wide, lying off the east coast of the Antarctic Peninsula. It is separated from James Ross Island to the northeast by Admiralty Sound. It is one of several islands around the peninsula known as Graham Land, which is closer to South America than any other part of that continent.^[1]

It was discovered on January 6, 1843 by a British expedition under James Clark Ross who, uncertain of its connection with the mainland, named it Snow Hill because its snow cover stood out in contrast to the bare ground of nearby Seymour Island. Its insular character was determined in 1902 by the Swedish Antarctic Expedition under Otto Nordenskiöld, who spent the winters of 1901, 1902, and 1903 there, using it as a base to explore the neighbouring islands and the Nordenskjold Coast of the Antarctic Peninsula.

For a postage stamp of Otto Nordenskiöld and his ship Antarctic, see British Antarctic Survey, Scott Catalog #53.

The hut is protected under the Antarctic Treaty. ^[2]

[edit] References

Antarctica. Sydney: Reader's Digest, 1985, pp. 152-159..

Child, Jack. Antarctica and South American Geopolitics: Frozen Lebensraum. New York: Praeger Publishers, 1988, pp. 69, 72.

Lonely Planet, Antarctica: a Lonely Planet Travel Survival Kit, Oakland, CA: Lonely Planet Publications, 1996, 307.

Stewart, Andrew, Antarctica: An Encyclopedia. London: McFarland and Co., 1990 (2 volumes), p 931.

U.S. National Science Foundation, Geographic Names of the Antarctic, Fred G. Alberts, ed. Washington: NSF, 1980.

[edit] See also

• List of antarctic and sub-antarctic islands

This article incorporates text from Snow Hill Island, in the Geographic Names Information System, operated by the United States Geological Survey, and therefore a public domain work of the United States Government.