52 THE ANTARCTIC VOYAGE : PRELIMINARIES 
Acknowledging, however, that they were within their rights 
in so doing, whatever the results to him, he gave up his original 
plan. His instructions left him a certain latitude, and, where 
England had so constantly led, he did not choose to follow. 
He therefore resolved to start his cruise in search of the Mag- 
netic Pole farther to the east along the meridian of 170° E. 
His chief reason for choosing tliis particular meridian ' was its 
being that upon which Balleny had in the summer of 1839 
attained to the latitude of 69° and there found an open sea.' 
It was not, he adds, because he feared to fail where the American 
and French had failed to do more than barely cross the Antarctic 
Circle. Their ships, unlike the Erebus and Terror, w^ere ill- 
adapted to battle with the ice. Even in longitude 170°, 
where Ross met with a belt of pack ice 200 miles wide, they 
could not have forced their way through. Thus in 1839-40, 
though D'Urville added Louis Phihppe Land to the South 
Shetlands group— south of Cape Horn— and south of Tasmania 
traced AdeHe Land for about 150 miles before approaching the 
supposititious C6te Clairee ;— though Wilkes followed the same 
line with its barrier of pack ice another 20° westwards, the 
ice, impenetrable by their ships, debarred them from so much 
as reaching latitude 70° S. In signal contrast to their moderate 
achievements, Ross himself, thus diverted from his original 
plan, was rewarded with superlative success in the discovery 
of Victoria Land, with its great volcano Mount Erebus, 13,000 
feet high, in 77|° S., and its stupendous ice barrier, which he 
traced for 250 miles, twice forcing his way beyond the 78th 
parallel. 
Unable to effect a landing so as to visit the southern Mag- 
netic Pole, 150 miles inland, he was able to place it very 
accurately from abundant observations. 
Ross made three expeditions to the South in the Erebus 
and Terror — the first, 1840-1, from Tasmania and back to 
Tasmania again, lasting five months, when he discovered 
Victoria Land and the Great Ice Barrier ; the second, 1841-2, 
from New Zealand and back to the Falkland Islands, east of 
Cape Horn, lasting four and a half months, when he revisited 
the Barrier : the third, 1842-3, from the Falkland Islands 
