320 SIEGE OF THE SOUTH POLE 
rising to 7050 feet was named Mount Haddington, after 
the First Lord of the Admiralty, and a small island 
was called Cockburn Island, after the senior Naval Lord. 
The weather became thick and stormy and the ice was 
very troublesome, so that nearly a week was spent dodg- 
ing about in the pack off Cockburn Island. On Janu- 
ary 6th the two captains landed on the island, hoisted 
the British flag and took formal possession in the name of 
the Queen. Dr. Hooker accompanied them and found 
that the only plants growing on the volcanic soil of this 
land on the edge of the Antarctic were nineteen species 
of minute mosses, algae and lichens. McCormick the 
senior surgeon remained on board fuming and fretting, 
after vainly beseeching the captain to relax his inexora- 
ble rule never to leave the ships without one medical 
officer on each. The white petrel, whose breeding place 
had not been found previously, was discovered nesting 
on the island. 
The ships proceeded to grope their way southward 
along a narrow channel between the land and a chain of 
grounded bergs. It was an unfortunate choice, for the 
pack grew closer and the ships were beset before they 
reached the 65th parallel. After a week’s incessant 
struggling to return or escape to the westward, in which 
all hands were well nigh exhausted, the ships forced their 
way into open water on January 17th. The main pack 
lay to the east, and as it seemed to involve too great a 
detour to attempt to turn it by the north, Ross decided 
to run the ships into it in the hope of forcing a 
way through to the southeast. The attempt was a com- 
plete failure, for the pack was too close to sail through, 
and it was drifting north so rapidly that at the end of 
the month the Erebus and Terror, after heading south- 
