DUMONT D’URVILLE 
201 
ticular area. The last motive, there is little reason to 
doubt, was the strongest of the three. Although appar- 
ently fully informed as to Ross’s plans he says that he 
had then no idea that Balleny had anticipated his in- 
tended voyage. France, he thought, might still be in time 
to share the laurels. 
At the end of 1839 the Astrolabe and Zelee were lying 
at Hobart Town and the Commodore formed his plan of 
sailing southward and exploring some part of the region 
between 120° and 160° E., where the parallel of 6o° S. 
had not been crossed by Cook, Bellingshausen or Biscoe. 
D’Urville declared in his published journal that his only 
object was to find at what latitude the solid ice-pack was 
to be encountered and then to cruise along the edge of it 
returning to the Auckland Islands or some port in New 
Zealand. 
The corvettes sailed on January 1st, 1840, the day of the 
death of M. Goupil, the artist, who died on shore where 
a considerable number of the crew of both ships remained 
in hospital. The vacancies were filled by English sailors 
obtained with great difficulty and ready in the Commo- 
dore’s opinion to desert at a moment’s notice. The course 
was set S. E. in order to reach the magnetic meridian or 
line of no variation and advance southward along that 
line, for D’Urville was now filled with a burning desire 
to advance the science of terrestrial magnetism. On the 
nth, the fifty-first parallel was crossed close to the posi- 
tion assigned in the charts to Royal Company Island of 
which no sign was seen, and about this time the alba- 
trosses which had convoyed the ships from Hobart Town 
ceased to follow. 
The first ice was met on the 16th in 6o° S., and two 
days later in 64° the Commodore, struck with the clearness 
