Fort William (Robert Island)

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Fort William
Geographical location
Fort William (South Shetland Islands)
Fort William
Coordinates 62 ° 22 ′  S , 59 ° 44 ′  W Coordinates: 62 ° 22 ′  S , 59 ° 44 ′  W
location Robert Island , South Shetland Islands
coast Coppermine Peninsula
Waters English Strait

Fort William is a 100  m high and flattened headland that forms the western end of Robert Island in the archipelago of the South Shetland Islands . It is an extension of the Coppermine Peninsula .

The British seal hunter Robert Fildes (1793–1827) describes the headland on his journey to Antarctica from 1820 to 1822 as the east side of the entrance to a waterway that is now known as the English Strait . In his report from 1829, however, he mistakenly placed it on the west side of English Strait and thus closed it to Greenwich Island . This view was also adopted by the participants in the British Discovery Investigations , who surveyed the area between 1934 and 1935. The UK Antarctic Place-Names Committee, on the other hand, after evaluating Fildes' report and studying numerous photographs in 1962, came to the conclusion that Fort William belongs to Robert Island and the later assignment of the name to the headland known today as Canto Point accounted for the east coast of Greenwich Island.

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