4 
SUPPLEMENT. 
been fulfilled, yet in the letter addressed by him to the Hon. 
George Elliot, secretary to the Admiralty, the public were given 
to understand, that certain discoveries had been made, highly 
important to science, the crown of which was, “the placing the 
illustrious name of our most gracious sovereign on the true 
position of the magnetic pole.” 
In strict conformity with the documents, with which we were 
furnished for the compilation of the last voyage of Captain Ross, 
and from the concurrent testimony of several individuals engaged 
in the expedition, we were led to form the opinion, that the true 
position of the magnetic pole had not been discovered, with that 
certainty and accuracy as were announced by Capt. Ross, in 
his letter to the Hon. George Elliot; or, at all events, that he 
himself had little or nothing to do with the discovery, even to the 
extent to which it was carried. By a reference to the examina¬ 
tion of Capt. Ross before the committee of the House of Com¬ 
mons, the members of that committee could not, from the 
guarded answers that were given by him, arrive at any other con¬ 
clusion, than that he himself had been instrumental in the dis¬ 
covery, and that the information which he gave them w as derived 
from his own knowledge and experience. 
In order, however, perfectly to understand the statements, as 
given by Capt. Ross and Commander Ross, and to reconcile the 
difference of the two accounts, as well as to determine to which 
of the two the merit of the discovery belongs, we will, in the first 
instance, give the statement of Capt. Ross, as it was explained by 
him in his answers to the Commons’ committee. 
In the 51st question, he is asked if “ The position of the mag¬ 
netic pole had already been determined by previous observa¬ 
tion “ Yes, by previous information; by our own observation 
we had determined we were within a very short distance , where 
the ship was, from the magnetic pole. By continuing those 
observations, we arrived at the spot.’’ 
In a subsequent part of the examination, we admitted that we 
were not within forty miles of it. When the memoir of Commo¬ 
dore Ross is given, it will be seen that we were not within nearly 
double that distance. 
