JAMES CLARK ROSS 257 
netic observatory, which you are to establish in the most 
advantageous position, and to place in charge of an 
officer. . . . Having brought this observatory into 
active operation, you will lose no time in proceeding to 
Sydney, which, according to the views contained in the 
before-mentioned report, will be a station eminently fitted 
for the determination of all the magnetic elements, and 
which will hereafter be the centre of reference for every 
species of local determination. 
“ The remaining winter months may be advantageously 
employed in visiting New Zealand and the adjacent 
islands. . . . but taking care to return to Van Die- 
men’s Land by the end of October, to refit Her Majesty’s 
ships, and to prepare them for a voyage to the southward. 
“ In the following summer, your provisions having 
been completed and your crews refreshed, you will pro- 
ceed direct to the southward in order to determine the 
position of the magnetic pole, and even to attain to it if 
possible, which it is hoped will be one of the remarkable 
and creditable results of this expedition. In the execu- 
tion, however, of this arduous part of the service en- 
trusted to your enterprise and to your resources, you are 
to use your best endeavours to withdraw from the high 
latitudes in time to prevent the ships from being beset 
with the ice : . . . Should the expedition have been 
able to avoid wintering in a high latitude, you will return 
to Van Diemen’s Land, availing yourself of every oppor- 
tunity you can seize of pursuing there, or in such other 
places as your deliberate judgment may prefer, those 
series of observations and experiments best adapted to 
carrying out the leading objects of the expedition. 
“ On the breaking up of the succeeding winter, you 
will resume the examination of the Antarctic seas in the 
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