Who is James Clark Ross?

Answer 1

James Clark Ross, born in 1800, entered the Navy at 11 years of age. During his first years of service he was tutored and watched over by his uncle, Sir John Ross. In 1818 he joined his uncle on a controversial voyage in search of the Northwest Passage. Between 1819 and 1827 he joined Edward Parry in four more expeditions to the Arctic. Between 1829 and 1833 Ross spent another four and one half years exploring the Arctic, achieving the rank of commander. On May 31, 1831, Ross located the position of the north magnetic pole on Boothia Peninsula in northern Canada. On April 8, 1839, Ross took command of the 370-ton EREBUS with his friend Francis Crozier assuming command of the 340-ton TERROR. Antarctica was the new challenge and a voyage was planned. Both ships were strengthened from bow to stern for the tough voyage ahead. The three-masted ships were ruggedly constructed warships used for carrying mortars. The TERROR had already seen service in Arctic waters during 1836. Due to Ross' extensive experience in the Arctic voyages, substantial supplies of preserved meat was loaded aboard to head off the risk of scurvy. In addition, extraordinary amounts of soups, vegetables, cranberries, pickles and other foodstuffs were included. Ross knew that a happy crew was a well-fed, comfortable crew so extensive work was also done to the ships' interiors. Senior representatives of the Admiralty inspected the ships on September 2, 1839 and approval was granted. The crew was paid three month's salary in advance and on October 5, 1839, EREBUS and TERROR left England on their southern voyage. Ross was instructed to sail to Tasmania where they were supposed to set up a permanent station for making magnetic observations. Along the way they were to set up similar observatories at St. Helena Island and the Cape of Good Hope. For two months EREBUS and TERROR stayed at Îles Kerguelen where a team of officers made hourly magnetometric observations while Ross made astronomical and tidal observations.

EREBUS and TERROR encountered a hurricane only two days after leaving the islands and became separated from each other. It was at this point that the expedition experienced its first fatality when the EREBUS'Sboatswain fell overboard and drowned. The voyage to Tasmania became filled with excitement as icebergs made the trip quite hazardous. Ross and the EREBUS landed in Hobart on August 16, 1840; the TERROR had landed the day before. While there, the magnetic observatory was built with the help of 200 convicts brought in by the Lieutenant Governor of Tasmania, Sir John Franklin. While in Hobart, Ross read newspaper accounts of the French and American searches for the magnetic south pole. Both Dumont d'Urville and Charles Wilkes were doing research in an area that Ross felt was his expertise and his alone. Wilkes was kind enough to leave Ross charts of his course and discoveries, although Ross never truly acknowledged the gesture. Ross made the decision to take a more easterly course for his search of the south magnetic pole rather than follow in Wilkes' footsteps. At daybreak, on November 12, 1840, EREBUS and TERRORpulled up their anchors, sailed down the Derwent River, and said good-bye to Sir John Franklin as they left Hobart for the Antarctic. One week later, they came upon the Auckland Islands. Approaching the islands, they noticed two boards erected on tall poles. On one board was a hand-painted sign recognizing American Charles Wilkes visiting the island on March 10 of the same year while the other painted sign was a notice from Dumont d'Urville recognizing his visit on the following day, March 11! Some magnetic observations and survey work was accomplished and the ships then sailed on to Campbell Island. On December 17 the two ships left Campbell Island and on December 27 they encountered the first icebergs and whales. On December 30 they crossed Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen's path and on New Year's Day, 1841, they crossed the Antarctic Circle. They soon came upon the Antarctic pack of ice that had yet to be penetrated by man. Encountering bad weather, the ice stretched before them "motionless and menacing". Poor weather continued but on January 5 Ross decided to "make the attempt on the ice and push the ships as far into it as we could get them". They forced their way slowly through the pack until after "about an hour's hard thumping" they came to lighter, scattered ice. They continued on "at times sustaining violent shocks, which nothing but ships so strengthened could have withstood". At 5 am on January 9 they broke into an open sea. Ross had discovered the Ross Sea and he now set his sights on the south magnetic pole. On January 11 land was reported straight ahead. Ross first thought it to be an ice-blink (a whiteness in the sky caused by the reflection of ice ahead) but as they approached they realized the ice-blink was actually a mountainous, snow-covered land. Ross was actually disappointed to find land between him and his search for the south magnetic pole but, nevertheless, quickly determined the sighting to be a "way of restoring to England the honor of the discovery of the southernmost land, which had been nobly won by the intrepid Bellingshausen, and for more than twenty years retained by Russia". They next saw a range of mountains, rising to 8000 feet, which he named the Admiralty Range. He named as many of the peaks as he could see. His compass needle was behaving oddly; Ross determined he was within 500 miles of the magnetic pole. Taking a westerly course, they sailed through the Ross Sea and on January 12 Ross and Crozier planted a flag on newly discovered Possession Island, one of two islands located just off the mainland. A toast was offered to "Her Majesty and His Royal Highness Prince Albert" with the region claimed as Victoria Land