VICTORIA LAND 281 
but on approaching nearer Ross convinced himself that 
High Island was no island, but part of the continent 
and he caught sight of high land over the wall of ice 
which he believed to be a great range of mountains run- 
ning southward from Cape Crozier, the point where the 
rocks of the land and the ice of the barrier met. Years 
before Sir Edward Parry had given Ross’s name to the 
most northerly known land on the globe, and with a due 
sense of the fitness of things, Ross gave the name of 
Parry Mountains to this most southerly chain. For 
sixty-three years this fine example of a grateful mem- 
ory graced the map, though all that now remains is 
another warning that in the polar regions the sense of 
sight is apt to play sad tricks — for the Parry mountains 
do not exist, and Erebus and Terror after all are the 
peaks of an island separated from the mainland of 
Antarctica. 
The dip and declination of the magnetic needle 
showed that the ships were now south as well as east of 
the position of the magnetic pole towards which the heavy 
land-ice made it impossible to approach by steering to 
the westward. The only thing that could be done was to 
follow the edge of the ice-barrier to the eastward in 
the hope that it would ultimately trend to the south- 
ward. The ships accordingly approached within three 
or four miles of the perpendicular ice cliffs, which rose 
smooth and solid to the height of from 200 to 300 feet 
and formed a straight line against the sky. Even from 
the masthead it was impossible to see over the wall, and 
all that could be ascertained regarding it was that it 
was flat-topped. The swell broke in a heavy surf upon 
the ice, and the sea was seen to have hollowed caves in 
the lower part of the ice-wall. Mount Erebus, towering 
