After calling at the Auckland Islands and at Campbell Island, Ross again steered for the South, and the Antarctic Circle was crossed on New Year’s Day, 1841.  The ships were now faced by the ice-pack, but to Ross this was not the dangerous enemy it had appeared to earlier explorers with their more weakly constructed vessels.  Ross plunged boldly into the pack with his fortified ships, and, taking advantage of the narrow leads, he came out four days later, after many severe buffets, into the open sea to the South.

Ross had reached the sea now named after him, and the boldest voyage known in Antarctic exploration was accomplished.

Few people of the present day are capable of rightly appreciating this heroic deed; this brilliant proof of human courage and energy.  With two ponderous craft —­ regular “tubs” according to our ideas —­ these men sailed right into the heart of the pack, which all previous polar explorers had regarded as certain death.  It is not merely difficult to grasp this; it is simply impossible —­ to us, who with a motion of the hand can set the screw going, and wriggle out of the first difficulty we encounter.  These men were heroes —­ heroes in the highest sense of the word.

It was in lat. 69deg. 15’ S. and long. 176deg. 15’ E. that Ross found the open sea.  On the following day the horizon was perfectly clear of ice.  What joy that man must have felt when he saw that he had a clear way to the South!

The course was set for the Magnetic Pole, and the hope of soon reaching it burned in the hearts of all.  Then —­ just as they had accustomed themselves to the idea of open sea, perhaps to the Magnetic Pole itself —­ the crow’s-nest reported “High land right ahead.”  This was the mountainous coast of South Victoria Land.

What a fairyland this must have seemed to the first voyagers who approached it!  Mighty mountain-ranges with summits from 7,000 to 10,000 feet high, some covered with snow and some quite bare —­ lofty and rugged, precipitous and wild.

It became apparent that the Magnetic Pole was some 500 miles distant —­ far inland, behind the snow-covered ridges.  On the morning of January 12 they came close under a little island, and Ross with a few companions rowed ashore and took possession of the country.  They could not reach the mainland itself on account of the thick belt of ice that lay along the coast.

The expedition continued to work its way southward, making fresh discoveries.  On January 28 the two lofty summits, Mount Erebus and Mount Terror, were sighted for the first time.  The former was seen to be an active volcano, from which smoke and flames shot up into the sky.  It must have been a wonderfully fine sight, this flaming fire in the midst of the white, frozen landscape.  Captain Scott has since given the island, on which the mountains lie, the name of Ross Island, after the intrepid navigator.