94 THE ANTARCTIC. 



Ross steered through the loose drift-ice to the edge of 

 the heavy main pack on New Year's Day, 1840, crossing 

 the Antarctic circle in his passage, but owing to the 

 thick weather he was obliged to haul off without pene- 

 trating into the pack-ice. Meantime, although this 

 obstruction had been met with in a lower latitude than 

 had been anticipated, this circumstance had no dispiriting 

 effect on the explorers, for they had also expected to find 

 it much more impenetrable than it proved to be. The 

 next day a strong breeze with thick snow showers led 

 Ross to stand off again, but after sailing one degree 

 north, and nearly three to the east, he, on the 4th of 

 January, determined to push the ships into the ice, 

 which was rapidly drifting north. From the 4th to the 

 9th of January the way was pursued through the pack 

 without the clear sea being discernible. Early on the 

 9th of January the open water was again reached in 

 latitude 69° 15' S. and longitude 176° 15' E. When the 

 fog, which had prevailed since the 8th, cleared off on 

 the following day, no trace of ice was any longer to be 

 seen from the masthead, and a latitude of 70° 23' S. on 

 meridian 174 5c/ E. was attained. 



In these circumstances Ross conjectured that the 

 land seen by Wilkes and Dumont d'Urville consisted 

 only of small islands, and that he would be in a position 

 to approach the magnetic pole by sea. The dip had 

 already indicated that this lay, not in the place predicted 

 by the calculations of Gauss, but considerably further 

 south. 



Ross now shaped his course south-west, directly for 

 the magnetic pole ; but that very evening a strong 

 " land-blink " appeared, and this in the morning proved 

 to be a lofty mountain chain covered with perennial snow. 

 At his approach the peaks seemed to open out and 

 extend to the right and left across the whole horizon, 

 and it seems that the whole range had actually been 



