The Worst Journey in the World (2 page)

Leaving New Zealand at the end of 1773 without his second ship, the
Adventure, from which he had been parted, he judged from the great swell
that "there can be no land to the southward, under the meridian of New
Zealand, but what must lie very far to the south." In latitude 62° 10' S.
he sighted the first ice island on December 12, and was stopped by thick
pack ice three days later. On the 20th he again crossed the Antarctic
Circle in longitude 147° 46' W. and penetrated in this neighbourhood to a
latitude of 67° 31' S. Here he found a drift towards the north-east.

On January 26, 1774, in longitude 109° 31' W., he crossed the Antarctic
Circle for the third time, after meeting no pack and only a few icebergs.
In latitude 71° 10' S. he was finally turned back by an immense field of
pack, and wrote:

"I will not say it was impossible anywhere to get farther to the south;
but the attempting it would have been a dangerous and rash enterprise,
and what, I believe, no man in my situation would have thought of. It
was, indeed, my opinion, as well as the opinion of most on board, that
this ice extended quite to the Pole, or perhaps joined to some land, to
which it had been fixed from the earliest time; and that it is here, that
is to the south of this parallel, where all the ice we find scattered up
and down to the north is first formed, and afterwards broken off by gales
of wind, or other causes, and brought to the north by the currents, which
are always found to set in that direction in the high latitudes. As we
drew near this ice some penguins were heard, but none seen; and but few
other birds, or any other thing that could induce us to think any land
was near. And yet I think there must be some to the south beyond this
ice; but if there is it can afford no better retreat for birds, or any
other animals, than the ice itself, with which it must be wholly covered.
I, who had ambition not only to go farther than any one had been before,
but as far as it was possible for man to go, was not sorry at meeting
with this interruption; as it, in some measure, relieved us; at least,
shortened the dangers and hardships inseparable from the navigation of
the Southern Polar regions."
^[4]

And so he turned northwards, when, being "taken ill of the bilious
colic," a favourite dog belonging to one of the officers (Mr. Forster,
after whom Aptenodytes forsteri, the Emperor penguin, is named) "fell a
sacrifice to my tender stomach.... Thus I received nourishment and
strength, from food which would have made most people in Europe sick: so
true it is that necessity is governed by no law."
^[5]

"Once and for all the idea of a populous fertile southern continent was
proved to be a myth, and it was clearly shown that whatever land might
exist to the South must be a region of desolation hidden beneath a mantle
of ice and snow. The vast extent of the tempestuous southern seas was
revealed, and the limits of the habitable globe were made known.
Incidentally it may be remarked that Cook was the first to describe the
peculiarities of the Antarctic icebergs and floe-ice."
^[6]

A Russian expedition under Bellingshausen discovered the first certain
land in the Antarctic in 1819, and called it Alexander Land, which lies
nearly due south of Cape Horn.

Whatever may have been the rule in other parts of the world, the flag
followed trade in the southern seas during the first part of the
nineteenth century. The discovery of large numbers of seals and whales
attracted many hundreds of ships, and it is to the enlightened
instructions of such firms as Messrs. Enderby, and to the pluck and
enterprise of such commanders as Weddell, Biscoe and Balleny, that we owe
much of our small knowledge of the outline of the Antarctic continent.

"In the smallest and craziest ships they plunged boldly into stormy
ice-strewn seas; again and again they narrowly missed disaster; their
vessels were racked and strained and leaked badly, their crews were worn
out with unceasing toil and decimated with scurvy. Yet in spite of
inconceivable discomforts they struggled on, and it does not appear that
any one of them ever turned his course until he was driven to do so by
hard necessity. One cannot read the simple, unaffected narratives of
these voyages without being assured of their veracity, and without being
struck by the wonderful pertinacity and courage which they display."
^[7]

The position in 1840 was that the Antarctic land had been sighted at a
few points all round its coasts. On the whole the boundaries which had
been seen lay on or close to the Antarctic Circle, and it appeared
probable that the continent, if continent it was, consisted of a great
circular mass of land with the South Pole at its centre, and its coasts
more or less equidistant from this point.

Two exceptions only to this had been found. Cook and Bellingshausen had
indicated a dip towards the Pole south of the Pacific; Weddell a still
more pronounced dip to the south of the Atlantic, having sailed to a
latitude of 74° 15' S. in longitude 34° 16' W.

Had there been a Tetrahedronal Theory in those days, some one might have
suggested the probability of a third indentation beneath the Indian
Ocean, probably to be laughed at for his pains. When James Clark Ross
started from England in 1839 there was no particular reason for him to
suppose that the Antarctic coast-line in the region of the magnetic Pole,
which he was to try to reach, did not continue to follow the Antarctic
Circle.

Ross left England in September 1839 under instructions from the
Admiralty. He had under his command two of Her Majesty's sailing ships,
the Erebus, 370 tons, and the Terror, 340 tons. Arriving in Hobart,
Tasmania, in August 1840, he was met by news of discoveries made during
the previous summer by the French Expedition under Dumont D'Urville and
the United States Expedition under Charles Wilkes. The former had coasted
along Adélie Land, and for sixty miles of ice cliff to the west of it. He
brought back an egg now at Drayton which Scott's Discovery Expedition
definitely proved to be that of an Emperor penguin.

All these discoveries were somewhere about the latitude of the Antarctic
Circle (66° 32' S.) and roughly in that part of the world which lies to
the south of Australia. Ross, "impressed with the feeling that England
had ever
led
the way of discovery in the southern as well as in the
northern region, ... resolved at once to avoid all interference with
their discoveries, and selected a much more easterly meridian (170° E.),
on which to penetrate to the southward, and if possible reach the
magnetic Pole."
^[8]

The outlines of the expedition in which an unknown and unexpected sea was
found, stretching 500 miles southwards towards the Pole, are well known
to students of Antarctic history. After passing through the pack he stood
towards the supposed position of the magnetic Pole, "steering as nearly
south by the compass as the wind admitted," and on January 11, 1841, in
latitude 71° 15' S., he sighted, the white peaks of Mount Sabine and
shortly afterwards Cape Adare. Foiled by the presence of land from
gaining the magnetic Pole, he turned southwards (true) into what is now
called the Ross Sea, and, after spending many days in travelling down
this coast-line with the mountains on his right hand, the Ross Sea on his
left, he discovered and named the great line of mountains which here for
some five hundred miles divides the sea from the Antarctic plateau. On
January 27, "with a favourable breeze and very clear weather, we stood to
the southward, close to some land which had been in sight since the
preceding noon, and which we then called the High Island; it proved to be
a mountain twelve thousand four hundred feet of elevation above the level
of the sea, emitting flame and smoke in great profusion; at first the
smoke appeared like snowdrift, but as we drew nearer its true character
became manifest.... I named it Mount Erebus, and an extinct volcano to
the eastward, little inferior in height, being by measurement ten
thousand nine hundred feet high, was called Mount Terror." That is the
first we hear of our two old friends, and Ross Island is the land upon
which they stand.

"As we approached the land under all studding-sails we perceived a low
white line extending from its eastern extreme point as far as the eye
could discern to the eastward. It presented an extraordinary appearance,
gradually increasing in height as we got nearer to it, and proving at
length to be a perpendicular cliff of ice, between one hundred and fifty
and two hundred feet above the level of the sea, perfectly flat and level
at the top, and without any fissures or promontories on its even seaward
face."
^[9]

Ross coasted along the Barrier for some 250 miles from Cape Crozier, as
he called the eastern extremity of Ross Island, after the commander of
the Terror. This point where land, sea and moving Barrier meet will be
constantly mentioned in this narrative. Returning, he looked into the
Sound which divides Ross Island from the western mountains. On February
16 "Mount Erebus was seen at 2.30 A.M., and, the weather becoming very
clear, we had a splendid view of the whole line of coast, to all
appearance connecting it with the main land, which we had not before
suspected to be the case." The reader will understand that Ross makes a
mistake here, since Mounts Erebus and Terror are upon an island connected
to the mainland only by a sheet of ice. He continues: "A very deep bight
was observed to extend far to the south-west from Cape Bird
(Bird was the
senior lieutenant of the Erebus)
, in which a line of low land might be
seen; but its determination was too uncertain to be left unexplored; and
as the wind blowing feebly from the west prevented our making any way in
that direction through the young ice that now covered the surface of the
ocean in every part, as far as we could see from the mast-head, I
determined to steer towards the bight to give it a closer examination,
and to learn with more certainty its continuity or otherwise. At noon we
were in latitude 76° 32' S., longitude 166° 12' E., dip 88° 24' and
variation 107° 18' E.

"During the afternoon we were nearly becalmed, and witnessed some
magnificent eruptions of Mount Erebus, the flame and smoke being
projected to a great height; but we could not, as on a former occasion,
discover any lava issuing from the crater; although the exhibitions of
to-day were upon a much grander scale....

"Soon after midnight (February 16-17) a breeze sprang up from the
eastward and we made all sail to the southward until 4 A.M., although we
had an hour before distinctly traced the land entirely round the bay
connecting Mount Erebus with the mainland. I named it McMurdo Bay, after
the senior lieutenant of the Terror, a compliment that his zeal and skill
well merited."
^[10]
It is now called McMurdo Sound.

In making the mistake of connecting Erebus with the mainland Ross was
looking at a distance upon the Hut Point Peninsula running out from the
S.W. corner of Erebus towards the west. He probably saw Minna Bluff,
which juts out from the mainland towards the east. Between them, and in
front of the Bluff, lie White Island, Black Island and Brown Island. To
suppose them to be part of a line of continuous land was a very natural
mistake.

Ross broke through the pack ice into an unknown sea: he laid down many
hundreds of miles of mountainous coast-line, and (with further work
completed in 1842) some 400 miles of the Great Ice Barrier: he penetrated
in his ships to the extraordinarily high latitude of 78° 11' S., four
degrees farther than Weddell. The scientific work of his expedition was
no less worthy of praise. The South Magnetic Pole was fixed with
comparative accuracy, though Ross was disappointed in his natural but
"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."

Before all things he was at great pains to be accurate, both in his
geographical and scientific observations, and his records of meteorology,
water temperatures, soundings, as also those concerning the life in the
oceans through which he passed, were not only frequent but trustworthy.

When Ross returned to England in 1843 it was impossible not to believe
that the case of those who advocated the existence of a South Polar
continent was considerably strengthened. At the same time there was no
proof that the various blocks of land which had been discovered were
connected with one another. Even now in 1921, after twenty years of
determined exploration aided by the most modern appliances, the interior
of this supposed continent is entirely unknown and uncharted except in
the Ross Sea area, while the fringes of the land are only discovered in
perhaps a dozen places on a circumference of about eleven thousand miles.

In his Life of Sir Joseph Hooker, Dr. Leonard Huxley has given us some
interesting sidelights on this expedition under Ross. Hooker was the
botanist of the expedition and assistant surgeon to the Erebus, being 22
years old when he left England in 1839. Natural history came off very
badly in the matter of equipment from the Government, who provided
twenty-five reams of paper, two botanizing vascula and two cases for
bringing home live plants: that was all, not an instrument, nor a book,
nor a bottle, and rum from the ship's stores was the only preservative.
And when they returned, the rich collections which they brought back were
never fully worked out. Ross's special branch of science was terrestrial
magnetism, but he was greatly interested in Natural History, and gave up
part of his cabin for Hooker to work in. "Almost every day I draw,
sometimes all day long and till two and three in the morning, the Captain
directing me; he sits on one side of the table, writing and figuring at
night, and I on the other, drawing. Every now and then he breaks off and
comes to my side, to see what I am after ..." and, "as you may suppose,
we have had one or two little tiffs, neither of us perhaps being helped
by the best of tempers; but nothing can exceed the liberality with which
he has thrown open his cabin to me and made it my workroom at no little
inconvenience to himself."