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Antarctic Exploration:
James Ross
James Clark Ross was born in 1800. He entered the Royal Navy at the age of 11, supervised by his uncle, Sir John Ross. By the age of 18 he was involved in a search for the Northwest passage, made four more trips to the Arctic and successfully located the North Magnetic Pole in 1831.
Ross turned his attention to the Antarctic, and set off in 1839, with two ship specially strengthened to deal with the ice. Ross captained the Erebus and his friend Francis Crozier captained The Terror. Ross wanted to add to his earlier triumph by locating the South Magnetic Pole, but was unable to because its position was at that time inland. He repeatedly tried to get near to land through the heavy pack ice covering a huge sea, which resulted in that sea being named after him. It was the first time that ships got through the pack ice and reached the clearer water beyond.
Progressing southwards,
they saw an enormous range of mountains, which they named Admiralty
Range. On 12 January 1841 Ross and Crozier planted the Union Jack
on Possession Island and named the area Victoria Land. Just weeks
later they beat Weddell's record and went further south than any
had been so far. On 27 January they saw a high mountain from the
top of which smoke and flames 
could
be seen. They named the volcano Mt Erebus. To the east
there was a smaller, extinct volcano, which they named Mt Terror.
Ross had discovered an island which would become the base for
many future explorations and is now the largest research station
in Antarctica, the USA's McMurdo station. During his Discovery
expedition, Captain Scott named the island after Ross. Mt Erebus
is still active, and smoke can often be seen but there has been
no eruption to equal the one seen by the Ross Expedition.
If you use any part of
this, acknowledge it in your bibliography like this:
Antarctica
(2001).
[Online], Available: www.kidcyber.com.au
Updated June 2002