Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
16 January. Clearly a storm was brewing which would rumble on for
years.
Ross, meanwhile, was very impressed with most of what he saw
in Australia but the introduction of a degree of democracy in New
South Wales he regarded 'a measure of very doubtful benefit to the
colony, and considered by many to be the first great step towards
1841 he set off to return to the scene of his former discoveries, hop-
ing to find another edge to the barrier past which he could slip in or-
der to sail farther south. He did not accept the theory, espoused by
Wilkes among others, that all the sightings of land within the circle
would prove to be parts of one continuous coastline embracing a
single continent. To him it seemed more reasonable to suppose that,
like the Arctic, this ice cap covered only sea and islands. If that were
so, it should prove possible to get closer to the pole. Ironically, it was
Ross, the thorough, conscientious explorer, who was wrong on this
matter and Wilkes, the less scrupulous chart-maker, whose hunch
was correct. Ross reached six miles farther south than he had the
previous year but was unable to add significantly to his discoveries.
He, therefore, resolved to try his luck in a different quarter.
Sailing close to the sixtieth parallel, he set course for Cape Horn,
wintered in the Falklands, then made for Graham Land. But he was
able to add little to what predecessors had observed and, eventually,
steered for home via the Cape. He reached England on 4 September
1843, having completed the most southerly circumnavigation yet
achieved (almost all close to or above the fiftieth parallel).
Thus ended a remarkable burst of 'Antarctic mania'. It was
rendered all the more extraordinary by the fact that scientific in-
terest in the southern polar region now lapsed once more until the
very end of the century.
The subsequent careers of these three Antarctic pioneers were
as diverse as their respective characters, Dumont D'Urville's was
