Recent Antarctic Exploration 15 



feel assured that the presence of land there amounts almost to a certainty, 

 yet I am unwilling to hazard the possibility of being mistaken on a point 

 of so much interest, or the chance of some future navigator under 

 more favourable circumstances proving that ours were only visionary 

 mountains. 



" The appearance of hummocky ridges and different shades, such as 

 would be produced by an irregular white surface, and its mountainous 

 elevation, were our chief grounds for believing it to be land, for not the 

 smallest patch of cliff or rock could be seen protruding on any part of 

 the space of about thirty degrees which it occupied. I have therefore 

 marked it on the chart only as an 'appearance of land."' 



As on Feb. 23, 1842, in the " Erebus " and " Terror," so on 

 Jan. 29, 1902, in the "Discovery," all the appearances of the 

 Barrier suggested the proximity of land. From his noon 

 position on Jan. 29 Captain Scott steamed along the face of 

 the Barrier, and he says (i. 178) : 



" Our course lay well to the northward of east ; and the change came 

 at 8 p.m., when suddenly the ice-cliff turned to the east, and, becoming 

 more and more irregular, continued in that direction for about five miles, 

 when it again turned sharply to the north. Into the deep bay thus 

 formed we ran, and as we approached the ice which lay ahead and to the 

 eastward of us, we saw that it differed in character from anything we had 

 yet seen. The ice-foot descended to varying heights of ten or twenty 

 feet above the water, and behind it the snow surface rose in long un- 

 dulating slopes to rounded ridges whose height we could only estimate. 

 If any doubt remained in our minds that this was snow-covered land, a 

 sounding of 100 fathoms quickly dispelled it. But what a land ! On 

 the swelling mounds of snow above us there was not one break, not a 

 feature to give definition to the hazy outline. Instinctively one felt that 

 such a scene as this was most perfectly devised to produce optical 

 illusions in the explorer, and to cause those errors into which we had 

 found even experienced persons to be led." 



A careful consideration of the positions of the ships as 

 above discussed shows that on the evening of Jan. 29, 1902, 

 the " Discovery " must have arrived at a position close to that 

 attained by the "Erebus" and "Terror" on the evening of 

 Feb. 23, 1842 ; and the report which each explorer furnished 

 of what he saw can leave no doubt that they were both 

 looking at portions, and probably identical portions, of the 

 same landscape. To Captain Scott, therefore, belongs the 

 honour of confirming Sir James Ross' discovery of land in 



