HISTORY OF DISCOVERY. 75 



stained from any further activity in the higher southern 

 latitudes, had he not been prompted by national vanity 

 once again to enter upon the hateful polar regions. In a 

 negative sense, he certainly had performed the task ex- 

 pected of him, viz., the attainment of a higher latitude 

 than Weddell on Weddell's course. It is extremely 

 probable that, like Wilkes, he had had news in Australia, 

 if not earlier, of the intended expedition of J. C. Ross in 

 search of the magnetic South Pole. Hoping to antici- 

 pate Ross in this important discovery, he probably 

 sought out the regions to which Ross had originally 

 been sent out. That the region where Balleny had 

 seen land, and where D'Urville and Wilkes found ex- 

 tensive tracts, should have been chosen as the goal of 

 Ross's voyage, was a consequence of the calculations 

 of Gauss of Gottingen. This great mathematician and 

 physicist assumed, on the basis of theoretical considera- 

 tions, that the magnetic South Pole was to be found in 

 approximately latitude 66° S. and longitude 146° E., in 

 the neighbourhood, therefore, of D'Urville's Adelie Land. 

 On the 2nd of January, 1840, D'Urville left the 

 harbour of Hobart Town in Tasmania, where the cele- 

 brated North Polar navigator, John Franklin, at that time 

 resided as governor of the island, and steered due south. 

 In the neighbourhood of latitude 51° S. he made un- 

 successful search for an island, entered on many charts 

 as Royal Company Island, since its existence is very 

 doubtful, and it is probable that an iceberg may have 

 been mistaken for an island. The first ice was en- 

 countered on the 1 6th of January in latitude 6o° S., 

 and it again caused D'Urville the keenest anxiety lest 

 the ships should again meet the impenetrable pack-ice. 

 His apprehensions, however, were entirely unfounded, for 

 on the 1 8th of January the vessels had reached latitude 

 64° S. without having seen any ice but the five large 

 icebergs on the date already mentioned. From their 



