VICTORIA LAND 
285 
pelled to abandon the perhaps too ambitious hope I 
had so long cherished of being permitted to plant the 
flag of my country on both the magnetic poles of our 
globe.” 
The very flag that had been raised at the North mag- 
netic pole was, in fact, on board the Erebus ready for 
its second service if the fates had been kind. The range 
amongst which the magnetic pole was believed to lie 
was named the Albert Mountains, and the name of 
Victoria, which has since been given to a colony, to many 
towns, lakes, rivers, and mountains, was given first of all 
to “ the whole of the great southern land we had dis- 
covered, and whose continuity we had traced from the 
seventieth to the seventy-ninth degree of latitude.” The 
name was thus evidently intended to apply to the Ant- 
arctic continent, not merely to the stretch of coast which 
had been followed southward. One other name was be- 
stowed before the land dropped from sight. This was 
Cape Washington, a headland to the south of Mt. Mel- 
bourne, called for the former secretary of the Royal 
Geographical Society, whose strenuous advocacy of the 
renewal of Antarctic research, although falling on deaf 
ears in the council of his society had, as we have seen, 
helped to stimulate, not only British, but also French 
interest in exploration to the south. 
The season was rapidly advancing and the whole sur- 
face of the sea was curdling with young ice when Ross 
realised that there was no good place to winter in and 
that it was necessary to return northward. It was some- 
what difficult to escape from this ice which was too 
strong for the ships to sail through with a light breeze, 
and at the same time not firm enough for men to work 
the ice-saws upon it. It was ultimately broken up by the 
