246 SIEGE OF THE SOUTH POLE 
While at the Bay of Islands Wilkes wrote to Captain 
Ross expressing his friendly feelings toward a brother 
explorer and giving various hints for the navigation of 
the Antarctic seas as well as particulars of the weather 
to be expected. He stated that his instructions were 
stringent as regards communicating the description of 
discoveries, but at the same time he sent the tracing of 
a chart showing the position of the ice-barrier and indi- 
cating various pieces of mountainous lands within it. 
Ross received the letter and chart and in the course of 
his voyage sailed across one of the lands represented in 
about 66° S. and 165° E., finding only open sea. Hav- 
ing proved that this land — shown in the position where 
Ringgold on the Porpoise thought he had seen high 
mountains — was non-existent, Ross declined to adopt any 
of Wilkes's discoveries shown on this chart, because it 
was impossible for him to decide how far they represented 
land actually seen, and how far land, the existence of 
which was inferred from indirect evidence. Wilkes 
heard of Ross’s voyage towards the end of 1841 when he 
touched at Oahu in the Sandwich Islands and then ex- 
plained that the land Ross had sailed over was no part 
of the American discoveries but a representation of the 
Balleny Islands, of the discovery of which he had heard 
in Sydney from Captain Biscoe, whom he met there.* 
This discovery of Balleny had in the hasty tracing been 
left without any statement that it was not an American 
claim, and the lands really claimed for the expedition 
all lay to the westward of the meridian of 160°, beyond 
which Ross did not go. Ross however pointed out that 
* Wilkes always spoke of Balleny as “ Bellamy,” and of Biscoe 
as " Briscoe,” slips that give rise to confusion in American writers 
to this day. 
