Thus, almost all scientific observations in the fields of geography, ethnography, and natural history were conducted by officers and the only scientist on board, associate professor Ivan Mikhailovich Simonov, who taught at the Imperial Kazan University.

[6] This theory was promoted by Hugh Robert Mill, a librarian of the Royal Geographical Society, and Frank Debenham, director of the Scott Polar Research Institute at the University of Cambridge.

The risk associated with sailing to these undiscovered and under-researched and covered with ice seas in search of the Southern continent is so large that I can bravely claim that not a single person will reach South further than I was able to do.

July 18] 1818, Krusenstern presented his project on researching the Pacific region in the belts at 20° north and south of the equator to the president of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences Sergey Uvarov.

[21] The following passage in Bellingshausen's description was very remarkable: In case of gaining islands and yet unknown costs, and also in commemoration of our stay in different places, it was allowed to leave and to give medals – silver for important people, and bronze – for others.

It was decided to go beyond the budget boundaries, so the crews also bought two chronometers by inventor John Arnold (№ 518 and 2110), and two – by Paul Philipp Barraud [de] (№ 920 and 922), three- and four-foot refractors with achromatic lenses, a 12-inch reflecting telescope, and for Simonov – a transit instrument and an attitude indicator.

There is available correspondence between Traversay and the Minister of National Education, Count Alexander Nikolaevich Golitsyn, judging from which one can conclude that scientific team on Vostok should include naturalist Martens, astronomer Simonov, and painter Mikhailov.

The next day, the consul arranged for the astronomers to use a rocky island called Rados where Simonov, guard-marine Adams and artilleryman Korniliev set a transit instrument and started to reconcile the chronometers.

[67] On November 9, commanders of both divisions – Bellingshausen, Lazarev, Vasiliev, and Shishmaryov – received the audience with the Portuguese king John VI of Portugal, who at that time resided in Brazil.

Before the ships departed, their crews filled the stocks and took for slaughtering two bulls, 40 pigs and 20 piglets, several sheep, ducks and hens, rum and granulated sugar, lemons, pumpkins, onions, garlic, and other herbs.

Along with a glass of punch, the crew was allowed to get a pint of beer made out of English concentrate; "for those who do not know, cheerful spirit and pleasure strengthen health; on the contrary, boredom and dullness cause laziness and untidiness that lead to scurvy".

On March 4, we observed a different picture: "all the sky, from the horizon to 12 or 15°, was covered with rainbow-colored strips that as fast as a flash of lightning ran from south to north, and changed their color constantly"; this phenomenon allowed the crews to get away from a collision with an iceberg.

[115][116] Before that, in February 1820, the sloops "Otkrytie" and "Blagonamerennyi" also went to Australia, and by thus their commanders flagrantly violated the rules set by the "Admiralty" – they did not prepare an interim report on the first season of the expedition, which should have been transmitted to St. Petersburg.

The crew gave to governor Macquarie and captain of the harbour John Piper some saccharum officinarum, sprouted coconuts and taro from Tahiti and Fiji islands, for plant breeding.

[153] A large stock of dry firewoods, taken on board in Australia, made the everyday life of the crew more or less tolerable: at zero air temperature in the living deck, thanks to the continuous use of stoves, it was maintained +11 °R (13,7 °C).

[174] Bellingshausen concluded the description of his expedition with the following calculations: ... 29 islands were discovered, including 2 in the southern cold zone, in the south temperate – 8, and 19 – in a hot belt; 1 coral shallow with a lagoon.

On the one hand, astronomer suggested that "the South Pole is covered with harsh and an impenetrable crust of ice, whose thickness, judging by the elevation above the surface of the ocean, can extend to 300 fathoms, counting from the lowest level at the sea depth, to the peak."

[187] Agreeing with Belov, Bulkeley concluded that scientific work in the Bellingshausen's expedition was not well thought out, equipped and financed, which consequently influenced the lack of sufficient publications on its matter.

During his scientific career, Simonov was constantly returning to his expedition materials; however, he never finished its full description for a wider audience – his text '"Vostok" and "Mirny"' breaks off on a second visit to Australia.

Generalized publications on the course and results of the expedition ceased to be issued, and Soviet and Western researchers focused on the private aspects of Russian visits to Australia and the Oceanian islands.

Bulkeley also pointed out many limitations of the publication, such as lack of Bellingshausen and Lazarev' biographies, summary map of the expedition, recount of dates following the Julian calendar, and obsolete measures, scientific bibliography, and other things).

For a long time, report that was sent in 1820 by Bellingshausen to Traversay from Australia, Lazarev's private letter that was written two months after the return to the homeland, and diary of sailor Kiselev which was filled with substantial breaks, remained in the status of manuscripts.

Tammiksaar argued that if navigators observed the ice shelf, they would not be able to understand and compare it with anything, since James Cook never faced with similar phenomena during his Antarctic expedition, while actual south polar glaciers were very different from the speculative hypothesis of Georges-Louis Buffon with which both Bellingshausen and Simonov were familiar with.

That caused a sharp criticism from the president of the Society Friedrich von Lütke who emphasized that the expedition had no scientists, and after all European discoveries, scientific interest to Bellingshausen's legacy had decreased.

In the preface to the first edition of the book by Douglas Mawson "V strane purgi" (Chief Directorate of the Northern Sea Route publishing house, 1936) it was stated that the discovery of Antarctica was made by Jules Dumont d'Urville, James Clark Ross, and Charles Wilkes, while Bellingshausen and Lazarev only got to the polar waters.

At that day the USA officially urged countries that pretended on Antarctic territories (Argentina, Australia, Chile, France, New Zealand, Norway and Britain) to unite and create a condominium of eight powers.

[233] Describing the observations from January 15, 1821, Iosif and Vadim Magidovich claimed that Soviet scientists in the 1960s proved the Bellingshausen's right to the discovery of Antarctica since the discovered by him Alexander I Land is connected with the Antarctic Peninsula of George VI Ice Shelf.

[234]In the contemporary historiography, fundamental research on the events of the Bellingshausen and Lazarev' expedition and its interpretation in the Russian and Soviet science is conducted by Tammiksaar (Estonia), Bulkeley (Great Britain), and Ovlashchenko (Latvia).

[240]Ovlashchenko, who was a specialist in the admiralty law (an associated member of the Baltic International Academy, Riga) published three books on the discoveries of Antarctica in Russian and Soviet historiography in the pre-1960s period.

[235] One of the reasons for a harsh criticism was that Ovlashchenko based on the large source material was aiming to demonstrate consistent usage of the Antarctic question in the geopolitical confrontation of the 1940-1950s, and conscious silencing of the Russian rights to Antarctica.