and decided to proceed along the 170th meridian E., and if possible
to reach the Magnetic Pole from the eastward.

Here was another fortuitous circumstance in the long chain of
events. If Ross had not received this intelligence, it is quite
possible that the epoch-making geographical discoveries associated
with his name would have been delayed for many years.

On November 12, 1840, Sir John Franklin went on board the Erebus
to accompany his friend Ross out of port. Strange are the ways of
life! There stood Franklin on the deck of the ship which a few years
later was to be his deathbed. Little did he suspect, as he sailed
out of Hobart through Storm Bay -- the bay that is now wreathed by
the flourishing orchards of Tasmania -- that he would meet his death
in a high northern latitude on board the same vessel, in storms and
frost. But so it was.

After calling at the Auckland Islands and at Campbell Island, Ross
again steered for the South, and the Antarctic Circle was crossed on
New Year's Day, 1841. The ships were now faced by the ice-pack, but
to Ross this was not the dangerous enemy it had appeared to earlier
explorers with their more weakly constructed vessels. Ross plunged
boldly into the pack with his fortified ships, and, taking advantage
of the narrow leads, he came out four days later, after many severe
buffets, into the open sea to the South.

Ross had reached the sea now named after him, and the boldest voyage
known in Antarctic exploration was accomplished.

Few people of the present day are capable of rightly appreciating this