206 SCIENTIFIC APPARATUS. 



and the least the historian can do is to give their names, and 

 suggest the credit due to them. 



19. The phenomena of terrestrial magnetism represented by 

 the illustrious Gauss and Weber, gave an impetus to exploration 

 in the southern regions, with the special view of determining 

 the position of the Magnetic Pole, and, in 1839, the Erebus and 

 Terror were fitted out by Government, and the command given to 

 Captain James Clark Ross for that purpose. 



20. Before the expedition under Captain Ross could reach the 

 antipodes, the French expedition under Captain Dumont d'Urville, 

 then in Tasmania, proceeded south, and discovered two portions 

 of land on the Antarctic Circle, which were named " Terre Adelie," 

 and Cote Clarie." 



21. Coincidently with the French expedition, that of the United 

 States, under Lieutenant and Commander Wilkes, proceeded 

 south, and mapped a large tract of land in the latitude of the 

 Antarctic Circle, for which he claimed the discovery ; but as a 

 portion of the land had been already seen by Balleny, to him is 

 the honour due ; and as the position of a portion of that mapped 

 land was subsequently passed over by Captain Ross at the eastern 

 end, and the Challenger failed to see anything of the western end, 

 when within fifteen miles of it on a clear day, the portion added 

 by this expedition to the already discovered land cannot well be 

 ascertained. 



22. In November, 1 840, Captain Ross left Hobart Town with the 

 Erebus and Terror, and after visiting Auckland and Campbell 

 Islands, proceeded south, and passing through a belt of pack ice, 

 about 200 miles broad, discovered, on the nth January, 1841, 

 Victoria Land in latitude 71. This land was traced to the south- 

 ward to latitude 78, where it terminated with the magnificent 

 volcanos Mounts Erebus and Terror, the first named being in a 

 state of eruption. From the eastern point of Mount Terror a wall 

 or barrier of perpendicular ice, from 150 to 200 feet high, extended 

 and was traced about 450 miles, when, the ships were necessitated 



