OF THE ANTARCTIC VOYAGE. 271 
dous chain of mountains, a portion of a new continent, of 
vast but undefined extent, the whole mass, from its highest 
point to the ocean's edge, covered with everlasting snow and 
ice; the sun (at that season) never setting, but day and night 
exhibiting the same spectacle of the extremes of nature's 
heat and cold. In mentioning such a phenomenon, I may 
be allowed to make the following extract from my son's 
letter :—“‘ The water and the sky were both as blue, or 
rather more intensely blue than I have ever seen them in the 
tropics, and all the coast one mass of dazzlingly beautiful 
peaks of snow, which, when the sun approaches the horizon, 
reflected the most brilliant tints of golden, yellow and scarlet ; 
and then to see the dark cloud of smoke, tinged with flame, 
rising from the volcano in a perfect unbroken column; one 
side jet-black, the other giving back the colours of the sun, 
sometimes turning off at a right angle by some current of 
wind, and stretching many miles to leeward! "This was a 
sight, so surpassing every thing that can be imagined, and so 
heightened by the consciousness that we have penetrated, 
under the guidance of our commander, into regions far be- 
yond what was ever deemed practicable, that it really caused 
a feeling of awe to steal over us, at the consideration of our 
own comparative insignificance and helplessness, and at the 
same time an indescribable feeling of the greatness of the 
Creator in the works of his hand.” Such a scene must be 
reckoned an ample compensation for the absence of all vege- 
tation. : 
On the 29th the expedition was suddenly obstructed in 
its southerly course by an object scarcely less wonderful, a 
perpendicular barrier of ice, of unknown extent, whose face 
presented a wall of 160 feet in height. To this Captain Ross 
gave the name of the Victoria Barrier : it runs in an easterly 
direction from Mount Erebus, as the volcano was called, in 
the 78th degree of south latitude. This huge rampart. they 
coasted from the 170th parallel of East longitude to nearly 
165° W., hoping to find a passage to the south, but none - 
appeared ; and at length, owing to the lateness of the season 
and the impossibility of obtaining safe shelter for the ships 
