president's address. 
151 
Ross' expedition, thus describes Ross' forcing a passage through 
the ice* — 
" He steered for the position of the Magnetic Pole, and, after 
passing through much loose ice, met the main pack, about lat. 67° 
S. and long. 174J 0 E. It was a formidable pack. Neither he 
nor any of the Arctic officers or men, of whom there were not a few 
in the ships, had ever seen anything like it in the north. Never- 
theless, Ross determined to try it, and in doing so the boldest 
held his breath for a space. In four or five days he pushed 
through it and entered comparatively open water." This proved 
to be a huge ocean pool 600 miles across, with a magnificent chain 
of extinct volcanoes, and one active volcano, bounding it on the 
east, the highest peak, Mount Melbourne, being estimated to be 
15,000 feet high. The sun often shone brilliantly on those 
stupendous snow-clad peaks as Ross and his men fought their way 
gallantly southwards until they reached the great ice barrier 
rising in a sheer cliff 150 feet to 200 feet above the sea, and 
barring further progress to the South. On the East the ice pack, j 
composed partly of floe ice (frozen sea water), partly of fragments 
of icebergs, hemmed them in, and they were compelled to return 
by the way they came. Speaking of the hardships endured by 
Ross and his men, during the third year of his commission, Hooker 
says ( op. cit. p. 28), " It was the worst season of the three, one of 
constant gales, fogs and snowstorms. Officers and men slept with 
their ears open, listening for the look-out man's cry of ' Berg 
ahead!' followed by 'All hands on deck!' The officers of the 
Terror told me that their commander (Crozier) never slept a night 
in his cot throughout that season in the ice, and that he passed it 
either on deck or in a chair in his cabin. They were nights of 
grog and hot coffee, for the orders to splice the main brace were 
many and imperative, if the crew were to be kept up to the strain 
on their nerves and muscles." 
Ross' dredging showed that animal life was abundant right up 
to the edge of the great ice barrier; and the observations made 
during the Challenger Expedition quite confirmed this conclusion, 
* The Geogr. Journ. Vol. iii. No. 1, January, 1894, p. 27. 
