This wonderfully written book tells the story of British, American, and Russian expeditions, from the astronomer Edmond Halley's voyage in the Paramore in 1699 to the sealer John Balleny's 1839 voyage in the Eliza Scott, all in search of land, fur, or elephant seals. These were voyages for science, national prestige, and profit. Life was incredibly harsh: Crews had poor provisions and inadequate clothing and were constantly threatened by scurvy.

Often they had to make their own charts as they sailed in the stormy waters of the Southern Ocean below the Convergence, that sea frontier marking the boundary between the freezing Antarctic waters and the warmer sub-Antarctic seas. These seamen were the first to discover and exploit a new continent, which was not the verdant southern land they imagined but an inhospitable expanse of rock and ice, ringed by pack ice and icebergs - Antarctica.