![]() The following summer, 1841–42, Ross continued to follow the ice shelf eastward. Ross called this the "Great Ice Barrier", now known as the Ross Ice Shelf, which they were unable to penetrate, although they followed it eastward until the lateness of the season compelled them to return to Tasmania. ![]() 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. a low white line extending from its eastern extreme point as far as the eye could discern. Reaching latitude 76° south on 28 January 1841, the explorers spied McMurdo Bay (now known as McMurdo Sound) was named after Archibald McMurdo, senior lieutenant of Terror. Mount Erebus, on Ross Island, was named after one ship and Mount Terror after the other. In January 1841, the ships landed on Victoria Land and proceeded to name areas of the landscape after British politicians, scientists and acquaintances. On 21 November 1840 they departed for Antarctica. In September 1839, Erebus and Terror departed Chatham, arriving at Tasmania (then known as Van Diemen's Land) in August 1840. Davis, who produced numerous charts and illustrations of the voyage Voyage Painting of the expedition in front of Beaufort Island and Mount Erebus, by Terror 's second master, John E. The 372-ton Erebus had been armed with two mortars – one 13 in (330 mm) and one 10 in (250 mm) – and ten guns. ![]() Their solid construction ideally suited them for use in dangerous sea ice that might crush other ships. Both were bomb ships, named and equipped to fire heavy mortar bombs at a high angle over defences, and were accordingly heavily built to withstand the substantial recoil of these three-ton weapons. HMS Erebus and HMS Terror, the ships servicing the Ross expedition, were two unusually strong warships. Main articles: HMS Erebus (1826) and HMS Terror (1813) Ships One of the expedition's ships, either HMS Erebus or HMS Terror, from the Illustrated London News, 1845 Another Arctic veteran was Thomas Abernethy, another friend of Ross, who joined the new expedition as a gunner. He had been on the Beagle surveying the coasts of Bolivia, Peru and Chile. Davis who was responsible for much of the surveying and chart production, as well as producing many illustrations of the voyage. McCormick had been ship's surgeon for the second voyage of HMS Beagle under Captain Robert FitzRoy, along with Darwin as gentleman naturalist. Hooker later became one of England's greatest botanists he was a close friend of Charles Darwin and became director of the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew for twenty years. The botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker, then aged 23 and the youngest person on the expedition, was assistant-surgeon to Robert McCormick, and responsible for collecting zoological and geological specimens. Its sister ship, HMS Terror, was commanded by Ross' close friend, Captain Francis Crozier. Ross, a captain of the Royal Navy, commanded HMS Erebus. Ross had made many previous expeditions to the Arctic, including experience as captain. Sir James Clark Ross was chosen to lead the expedition after previous experience working on the British Magnetic Survey from 1834 onwards, working with prominent physicists and geologists such as Humphrey Lloyd, Sir Edward Sabine, John Phillips and Robert Were Fox. In 1838, the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BA) proposed an expedition to carry out magnetic measurements in the Antarctic. The expedition was also the last major voyage of exploration made wholly under sail.Įxpedition Portrait of Sir James Clark Ross by John R. Among the expedition's biological discoveries was the Ross seal, a species confined to the pack ice of Antarctica. The expedition confirmed the existence of the continent of Antarctica, inferred the position of the South Magnetic Pole and made substantial observations of the zoology and botany of the region, resulting in a monograph on the zoology and a series of four detailed monographs by Hooker on the botany, collectively called Flora Antarctica, published in parts between 18. The young botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker made his name on the expedition. On the expedition, Ross discovered the Transantarctic Mountains and the volcanoes Mount Erebus and Mount Terror, named after each ship. It explored what is now called the Ross Sea and discovered the Ross Ice Shelf. The Ross expedition was a voyage of scientific exploration of the Antarctic in 1839 to 1843, led by James Clark Ross, with two unusually strong warships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. HMS Erebus and HMS Terror in the Antarctic, by James Wilson Carmichael, 1847. 1839–43 British Antarctic exploration mission
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