INTRODUCTION 



the Antarctic had viewed as extending right up to some 

 remote and inaccessible land was found to be a belt about 

 a hundred miles wide, and in four days the Erebus and 

 Terror passed through it into the open waters of what is 

 now called Ross Sea. The way seemed to lie open to the 

 Magnetic Pole when a mountain appeared on the horizon. 

 Ross called it Mount Sabine, after the originator of the 

 expedition, and held on until on January 11 he was within 

 a few miles of the bold mountainous coast of South 

 Victoria Land; in front of him lay Cape Adare in latitude 

 71° South, from which one line of mountains, the 

 Admiralty Range, ran north-west along the coast to Cape 

 North, another, the peaks of which he named after the 

 members of the Councils of the Royal Society and the 

 British Association, ran along the coast to the south. Ross 

 went ashore on Possession Island on January 12 and took 

 possession of the first land discovered in the reign of 

 Queen Victoria. The sea swarmed with whales, in the 

 pursuit of which Ross, probably mistaking the species, 

 thought that a great trade would spring up. On the 

 22nd the latitude of 74° South was passed, and the ex- 

 pedition was soon nearer the Pole than any human being 

 had been before. A few days later Franklin Island was 

 seen and visited ; but, as at Possession Island, no trace of 

 vegetation was found. On the morning of January 28, 

 a new mountain emitting volumes of smoke appeared 

 ahead; it was Mount Erebus, named after the leading 

 ship, and on High Island, as Ross called the land from 

 which it sprung, appeared a lesser and extinct volcano 

 called Mount Terror after the second vessel. As the ships 

 drew near confident of sailing far beyond the 80th parallel 

 an ice-barrier appeared similar to that reported by Wilkes 

 on his cruise, but greater. Vast walls of ice as high as 

 the cliffs of Dover butted on to the new land at Cape 

 Crozier, its western limit, and formed an absolute bar to 



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