page_title: Ross expedition
section_title: Voyage
hierarchical_section_title: Ross expedition / Expedition / Voyage
caption_attribution_description: English: One of the ships of Sir John Franklin's last expedition (Erebus or Terror)
context_page_description: The Ross expedition was a voyage of scientific exploration of the Antarctic in 1839 to 1843, led by James Clark Ross, with two unusually strong warships, HMS Erebus and HMS Terror. It explored what is now called the Ross Sea and discovered the Ross Ice Shelf. On the expedition, Ross discovered the Transantarctic Mountains and the volcanoes Erebus and Terror, named after his ships. The young botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker made his name on the expedition.
  The expedition inferred the position of the South Magnetic Pole, and made substantial observations of the zoology and botany of the region, resulting in a monograph on the zoology, and a series of four detailed monographs by Hooker on the botany, collectively called Flora Antarctica and published in parts between 1843 and 1859. The expedition was the last major voyage of exploration made wholly under sail.
  Among the expedition's biological discoveries was the Ross seal, a species confined to the pack ice of Antarctica.
context_section_description: In September 1839, the Erebus and the Terror departed Chatham, arriving at Tasmania (then known as Van Diemen's Land) in August 1840. On 21 November 1840 they departed for Antarctica. In January 1841, the ships landed on Victoria Land, and they proceeded to name areas of the landscape after British politicians, scientists, and acquaintances. Mount Erebus, on Ross Island, was named after one ship and Mount Terror after the other. McMurdo Bay (now known as McMurdo Sound) was named after Archibald McMurdo, senior lieutenant of the Terror.
  Reaching latitude 76° south on 28 January 1841, they spied
  ...a low white line extending from its eastern extreme point as far as the eye could discern... It presented an extraordinary appearance, gradually increasing in height, as we got nearer to it, and proving at length to be a perpendicular cliff of ice, between one hundred and fifty and two hundred feet above the level of the sea, perfectly flat and level at the top, and without any fissures or promontories on its even seaward face.
  Ross called this the Great Icy Barrier, now known as the Ross Ice Shelf, which they were unable to penetrate, although they followed it eastward until the lateness of the season compelled them to return to Tasmania. The following summer, 1841–42, Ross continued to survey the "Great Ice Barrier", as it was called, continuing to follow it eastward. Both ships stayed at Port Louis, in the Falkland Islands for the winter, leaving in September 1842 to explore the Antarctic Peninsula, where they conducted studies in magnetism, and returned with oceanographic data and collections of botanical and ornithological specimens.
  The ships arrived back in England on 4 September 1843, having confirmed the existence of the southern continent and charted a large part of its coastline. The Ross expedition was the last major voyage of exploration made wholly under sail. Both the Erebus and the Terror would later be fitted with steam engines and used for the 1845–1848 Franklin expedition to the Northwest Passage, in which both ships (and all crew) would ultimately be lost.
caption: One of the expedition's ships, either HMS Erebus or HMS Terror, from the Illustrated London News, 1845