Foreign Relations of the United States Diplomatic Papers, 1940, General and Europe, Volume II

800.014 Antarctic/546

The Minister in Australia (Gauss) to the Secretary of State

No. 28

Canberra, September 18, 1940.
[Received October 11.]

Sir: I have the honor to refer to the Department’s instruction dated April 30, 1940⁴ and addressed to the American Consular Officer in Charge, Sydney, with reference to the limits of longitude of certain Antarctic lands. The Department desired knowledge of the authority for the limits as furnished by the Commonwealth Government to the Royal Geographic Society and published by it in the Geographical Journal, September, 1939.

The matter was taken up with the Secretary, Department of External Affairs, who has supplied the answer to the Department’s direct question in a letter dated September 18, 1940, a copy of which is herewith enclosed. The enclosures to that letter, a copy of the Acceptance Act of 1933 and a copy of an Order in Council of August 14, 1936, are supplied in single copy only. The following additional information was supplied orally:

The original Act simply accepted for the Commonwealth Government a strip of land extending from 45 degrees E. to 160 degrees E., with the exception of Adelie Land, a strip recognized as French but which had not been delimited by agreement or otherwise. Agreement was reached with the French Government in January 1938 as to the limits of Adelie Land. The subsequent naming of the limits of the six other lands included within the scope of the original Act was undertaken with no other purpose than to show on the latest map the work which was believed, after much investigation and study, to have been accomplished by each individual explorer. The discoveries are shown in small italics on the Commonwealth Government’s map of Antarctica which was enclosed with despatch no. 690, dated February 28, 1940, from the American Consul General at Sydney.⁵ The names assigned to the various lands have therefore no political significance.

Respectfully yours,

C. E. Gauss

[Enclosure]

The Secretary of the Australian Department of External Affairs (Hodgson) to the First Secretary of the American Legation in Australia (Minter)

Canberra, September 18, 1940.

Dear Minter: With reference to the letter of 30th April, 1940, addressed to the American Consular Officer in Charge, Sydney, concerning the delimitation of various areas in the Australian Antarctic Territory, I desire to inform you that, in April 1939, the Secretary of the Royal Geographical Society was informed that the Commonwealth Government had assigned the following limits to the “lands” in the Australian Antarctic Territory.

Enderby Land	45°	– 55° E.
Kemp Land	55°	– 60° E.
MacRobertson Land	60°	– 73° E.
Princess Elizabeth Land	73°	– 86° E.
Kaiser Wilhelm II Land	86°	– 91° E.
Queen Mary Land	91°	–102° E.
Wilkes Land	102°	–136° E.

The limits mentioned above were formally determined by the Department of External Affairs on 18th January, 1939, in pursuance of the authority to administer the Australian Antarctic Territory Acceptance Act 1933 vested in it by Order in Council made by His Excellency the Governor-General on the 13th day of August, 1936, which was published in the Commonwealth of Australia Gazette on Friday, 14th August, (Gazette No. 67 of 1936). Copies of the Act and Order in Council are enclosed herewith.

Yours sincerely,

W. R. Hodgson

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