ptions of Mount Erebus, the flame and smoke being
projected to a great height; but we could not, as on a former occasion,
discover any lava issuing from the crater; although the exhibitions of
to-day were upon a much grander scale....

"Soon after midnight (February 16-17) a breeze sprang up from the
eastward and we made all sail to the southward until 4 A.M., although we
had an hour before distinctly traced the land entirely round the bay
connecting Mount Erebus with the mainland. I named it McMurdo Bay, after
the senior lieutenant of the Terror, a compliment that his zeal and skill
well merited."[10] It is now called McMurdo Sound.

In making the mistake of connecting Erebus with the mainland Ross was
looking at a distance upon the Hut Point Peninsula running out from the
S.W. corner of Erebus towards the west. He probably saw Minna Bluff,
which juts out from the mainland towards the east. Between them, and in
front of the Bluff, lie White Island, Black Island and Brown Island. To
suppose them to be part of a line of continuous land was a very natural
mistake.

Ross broke through the pack ice into an unknown sea: he laid down many
hundreds of miles of mountainous coast-line, and (with further work
completed in 1842) some 400 miles of the Great Ice Barrier: he penetrated
in his ships to the extraordinarily high latitude of 78 deg. 11' S., four
degrees farther than Weddell. The scientific work of his expedition was
no less worthy of praise. The South Magnetic Pole was fixed with
comparative accuracy, though Ross was disappointed in his natural but
"perhaps too ambitious hope I had so long cherished of being permitted to
plant the flag of my country on both the magnetic Poles of our globe."

Before all things he was at great pains to be accurate, both in his
geographical and scientific observations, and his records of meteorology,
water temperatures, soundings, as also those concerning the life in the
oceans through which he passed, were not only frequent but trustworthy.

When Ross returned to England in 1843 it was impossible not to believe
that the case of those who advocated the existence of a South Polar
continent was considerably strengthened. At the same time there was no
proof that the various blocks of land which had been discovered were
connected with one another. Even now in 1921, after twenty years of
determined exploration aided by the most modern appliances, the interior
of this supposed continent is en