When Ross went to the Antarctic it was generally thought that there was
neither food nor oxygen nor light in the depths of the ocean, and that
therefore there was no life. Among other things the investigations of
Ross gave ground for thinking this was not the case. Later still, in
1873, the possibility of laying submarine cables made it necessary to
investigate the nature of the abyssal depths, and the Challenger proved
that not only does life, and in quite high forms, exist there, but that
there are fish which can see. It is now almost certain that there is a
great oxidized northward-creeping current which flows out of the
Antarctic Ocean and under the waters of the other great oceans of the
world.

It was the good fortune of Ross, at a time when the fringes of the great
Antarctic continent were being discovered in comparatively low latitudes
of 66° and thereabouts, sometimes not even within the Antarctic Circle,
to find to the south of New Zealand a deep inlet in which he could sail
to the high latitude of 78°. This inlet, which is now known as the Ross
Sea, has formed the starting-place of all sledging parties which have
approached the South Pole. I have dwelt upon this description of the
lands he discovered because they will come very intimately into this
history. I have also emphasized his importance in the history of
Antarctic exploration because Ross having done what it was possible to do
by sea, penetrating so far south and making such memorable discoveries,
the next necessary step in Antarctic exploration was that another
traveller should follow up his work on land. It is an amazing thing that
sixty years were allowed to elapse before that traveller appeared. When
he appeared he was Scott. In the sixty years which elapsed between Ross
and Scott the map of the Antarctic remained practically unaltered. Scott
tackled the land, and Scott is the Father of Antarctic sledge travelling.