nk to the health, long life, and happiness of Her Majesty and
His Royal Highness Prince Albert."

The end of the month found them farther south than any explorer had
sailed before. Everything was new, and they were suddenly startled
to find two volcanoes, one of which was active; steam and smoke rising
to a height of two thousand feet above the crater and descending as
mist and snow. Mount Erebus and Mount Terror, Ross called them, in
memory of his two ships. They sailed on, but soon were stopped by a
huge barrier of solid ice like a great white wall, one thousand feet
thick and one hundred and eighty feet above sea-level. They knew now
they could get no farther this season--they had reached a point one
hundred and sixty miles from the Pole. Could they but have wintered
here "in sight of the brilliant burning mountain and at so short a
distance from the Magnetic Pole," they might easily have reached it
the following spring,--so they thought,--but reluctantly Ross had to
turn. "Few can understand the deep feelings of regret with which I
felt myself compelled to abandon the perhaps too ambitious hope I had
so long cherished of being permitted to plant the flag of my country
on both Magnetic Poles of our globe."

The whole of the great southern land they had discovered received the
name of Queen Victoria, which name it keeps to-day. They had been south
of the Antarctic Circle for sixty-three days, when they recrossed it
on 4th March. A few days later they narrowly escaped shipwreck. An
easterly wind drove them among some hundreds of icebergs. "For eight
hours," says Ross, "we had been gradually drifting towards what to
human eyes appeared inevitable destruction; the high waves and deep
rolling of our ships rendered towing with boats impossible, and our
situation was the more painful from our inability to make any effort
to avoid the dreadful calamity that seemed to await us. The roar of
the surf, which extended each way as far as we could see, and the dashing
of the ice fell upon the ear with painful distinctness as we
contemplated the awful destruction that threatened in one short hour
to close the world and all its hopes and joys and sorrows upon us for
ever. In this deep distress we called upon the Lord ... and our cry
came before Him. A gentler air of wind filled our sails; hope again
revived, and before dark we found ourselves far removed from every
danger."

[Illustration: PART OF THE GREAT SOUTHERN ICE BARRIER, 4