Wikipedia:Today's featured article/August 20, 2010

Benjamin Morrell (1795–1839) was an American sealing captain and explorer who between 1823 and 1831 made a series of voyages, mainly to the Southern Ocean and the Pacific Islands. Morrell's reputation among his peers was for untruth and fantasy. Claims in his partly ghost-written memoir, A Narrative of Four Voyages, especially those relating to his Antarctic experiences, have been disputed by geographers and historians. After running away to sea at the age of 16 and being twice captured and imprisoned by the British during the War of 1812, Morrell sailed before the mast for several years and subsequently became captain of the sealer Wasp. In 1823 he took Wasp for an extended voyage into sub-Antarctic waters, and it was from this first of four voyages that much of the controversy surrounding his reputation developed. Many of his claims—the first landing on Bouvet Island, a Weddell Sea penetration to 70°S, an extremely rapid passage of 3,500 miles (5,600 km) at improbably high latitudes, and the discovery of a coastline he named New South Greenland—have been doubted or proved false. His subsequent three voyages, in other ships, were less contentious, although his descriptions of various incidents have been dismissed as fanciful or absurd. He is believed to have died in 1839 of a fever contracted in Portuguese East Africa. (more...)

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