252 SIEGE OF THE SOUTH POLE 
scientific tastes. At least one of the assistant surgeons 
entered the navy for the express purpose of taking ad- 
vantage of the scientific opportunities afforded by this 
voyage. 
The command of the expedition was conferred on 
Captain Rpss on April 8th, 1839, when he was appointed 
to H. M. S. Erebus, while his old shipmate, Commander 
Francis Rawdon Moira Crozier, was a month later ap- 
pointed to command TI. M. S. Terror, the second ship set 
apart for the expedition. Suggestions had been made 
as to the desirability of employing steamers for polar 
exploration; but steam power was still new in the navy 
and not to be thought of for an expedition to such dis- 
tant waters. The Erebus was, in naval parlance, a 
bomb, that is, a vessel specially made for carrying 
mortars designed to throw bombs of large diameter at a 
high angle of elevation. She was consequently very 
strongly built, entirely of wood, as were all sailing ships 
of that date and for long afterwards, and possessed of a 
capacious hold well adapted for the stowage of stores. 
She was a small vessel, only 370 tons burden, with 
clumsy rounded bows and a slow sailer excelling only in 
her power of rolling, but she had the compensating 
advantage of light draught of water, and a small crew 
was sufficient to work her. 
The second vessel, the Terror, of 340 tons, was prac- 
tically of the same size and build and she had already 
proved herself capable of contending with polar ice. In 
I ^37 she had been strengthened for the purpose and dis- 
patched to the relief of the whaling fleet which had 
been frozen up in Baffin Bay the previous winter. 
Under Sir George Back she had made a vain attempt to 
reach Repulse Bay, sustaining some damage in the effort. 
