account shows with what enthusiasm he found it. "We
were now within fourteen miles of the calculated position of the
Magnetic Pole and now commenced a rapid march, and, persevering with
all our might, we reached the calculated place at eight in the morning
of the 1st of June. I must leave it to others to imagine the elation
of mind with which we found ourselves now at length arrived at this
great object of our ambition. It almost seemed as if we had accomplished
everything that we had come so far to see and to do; as if our voyage
and all its labours were at an end, and that nothing remained for us
but to return home and be happy for the rest of our days. Amid mutual
congratulation we fixed the British flag on the spot and took
possession of the North Magnetic Pole and its adjoining territory in
the name of Great Britain and King William IV. We had plenty of
materials for building, and we therefore erected a cairn of some
magnitude under which we buried a canister containing a record of the
interesting fact." Another fortnight found the successful explorers
staggering back to the _Victory_ with their great news, after an
absence of twenty-eight days.

Science has shown that the Magnetic Pole revolves, and that Ross's
cairn will not again mark its exact position for many a long year to
come.

[Illustration: THE ROSSES ON THEIR JOURNEY TO THE NORTH MAGNETIC POLE.
From a drawing in Ross's _Second Voyage for a North-West Passage_,
1835.]

By the end of August the ice had broken and the _Victory_ was once
more in full sail, but gales of wind drove her into harbour, which
she never left again. Despite their colossal efforts, it soon became
apparent that yet another winter would have to be passed in the frozen
seas. The entries in Ross's journal become shorter and more despondent
day by day. "The sight of ice to us is a plague, a vexation, a torment,
an evil, a matter of despair. Could we have skated, it would not have
been an amusement; we had exercise enough and, worst of all, the ice
which surrounds us obstructed us, imprisoned us, annoyed us in every
possible manner, had become odious to our sight." By October there
was no open water to be seen; "the hopeful did not hope more, and the
despondent continued to despair."

This was their third winter in the ice--food was growing scarce, the
meat was so hard frozen that it had to be cut with a saw or thawed
in warm cocoa. Snow-blindness afflicted many of the men badly. At