288 Miscellaneous Intelligence. 
ras port of Sydney, where supplies may be obtained. From thence 
will make a second attempt to penetrate “sn the Pontes? re- 
cen south of Van Diemen’s Land, and as far west as 45° east, 
Enderby’s Land, making your rendezvous as you ews at Keijueianl 8 
Island, or the Isle of Desolation, as it is now usually denominated, where 
you will probably arrive by the latter end of March, 1840.” 
e dates prove conclusively that my soar ee were issued from 
our Slee Department nine days before the body met who first took any 
steps towards the investigations on magnetism, a of which the Eng- 
lish Antarctic Expedition had its birth, and when that Expedition was 
not yet dreamed of. Captain Ross received his appointment to it nine 
months after these dates. 
The publication of Captain Ross’s Narrative affords me the opportu- 
nity of vindicating the Exploring Expedition and myself, from the un- 
founded assertion set forth by Captain Ross on his return from his first 
Antarctic Cruise: that he had sailed over our discoveries, or, in his 
own words, ‘had found a clear sea where I had laid down mountain- 
ous land.” 
I had no idea until I saw the engraved chart in Captain Ross’s book, 
what was meant by the * mountainous land” which he refers to. On 
the original chart from which the tracing was taken that I sent him, 
there is not the least resemblance to the “ mountainous land” Captain 
Ross speaks of, nor to the representation of it on the one he has had 
engraved. In the original chart, now in my possession, this mountain- 
ous land is only twenty-seven miles in length, whilst the engraved one 
in Captain Ross’s book makes it eighty miles ; and it is as much unlike 
in every other respect. I positively assert that the land as it appears on 
the chart he has had engraved, could not have been traced from any 
thing sina was in my possession then or since. Captain Ross admits 
that he n possession of the publications in Sydn ney, wherein it was 
deiacsiy than that our discoveries did not extend east of 160 degrees 
east longitude ; consequently there could be no reason for his believing 
the * mountainous land” to be a part of our discoveries ; and what wi 
make it still more evident is, nt — knew that Bellany had sailed 
over y position that this ** moun s land” occupied on the chart. 
Why then did he not say so, iistend of acter that he had sailed over 
our discoveries ? 
n page 293, vol. i, Captain Ross relies upon three grounds to excul- 
pate himself from the imputation of endeavoring to underrate the labors 
of the American Expedition, as well as to detract from the ep 
of myself by promulgating so unfounded a report. They a 
- ne Pitan the true position of Bellany’s Islands had Bist given by 
im 
2d. That I had a knowledge of their true position ; and 
t the land was not laid down in that ptt on the tracing, 
and therfore could not possibly have been meant for 
presumes wee data that were not true. "y had no know- 
ledge of the true “poston of Bellany’s Island when I wrote to Captain 
and no rmation respecting it but that derived from Captain 
Briscoe, who fsa the position of it on my chart. I had no written 
