The daily morning journal and courier., 1895-12-13

ly sarcastic when speaking of the great discoveries of both the American and French expeditions There Is, hoWeV- CT, hardly any good reason to doubt
 the genuineness of Ross discoveries, On January llth he distinctly saw
 land, though it was a hundred miles away, as was proven by subsequent ob- | servations, It rose in lofty peaks en- tirely covered with snow The two ships bore away towards the land and came within five miles of it. If was a beautifully clear evening, and the eN- plorers had most enchanting view of | the two magnificent ranges of noun
 tains, whose lofty summlts rose to ele- vations varying from seven to ten
 thousand feet above the level of the
 ocean,
 Ross made q landing on one of the islands skirting the mainland and took possession of the whole southern eontl- nent in the name of Queen Victoria.
 He was unable to get to the mainland owing to the ice and the current. The
 Erebus and Terror sailed along the
 coast for several days, and on the 18th got another view of the mountains, one
 of which was roughly measured at l fourteen thousand feet Many peaks
 were named, and an outline map of the continent made.
 That it was a continent was hardly
 hand. The soundings indicated it. the
 size of the great mountains, the i'm
 movability of the almost interminable
 ice barrier, the solidity of the glaciers which jutted out into the sea, all told
 of the proximity of an immense body of land. Further than this, the Erebus
 and Terror coasted along the barrier | for more than four hundred miles with out finding a break or finding the wall
 in motion. It was impossible to effect
 landing anywhere on the mainland
 and the expedition was obliged to re- | turn without having actually set foot on the great continent which had been
 claimed by England,
 On January 18th Captain Ross dis
 covered magnificent mountain, and | standing to the southward to reach it. | found it to be volcano 12, 400 feet high
 and emitting flame and smoke in great profusion. He named it Mount Erebus | An extinct volcano to the eastward little inferior in height, was called 1 Mount Terror. The two ships were TUT
 towards this high land, but the ice was
 soon encountered again and the vessels
 were stopped many miles from tht mainland.
 The barrier presented an extraordt
 nary appearance, gradually increasing in height as it was approached, anc proving at length to be perpendicular
 cliff of crystal, between one hundred
 and fifty and two hundred feet above
 the level of the sea, perfectly fiat and
 level at the top, and without any ifs sures or promontories on its even sea l ward face. What was immediately be
 yond it could not be imagined, for be l ing much higher than the ships mast | head, nothing could be seen but tht summits of the lofty mountains. Tht
 obstruction was absolutely insur l mountable, and after making 7S de | grees, 4 minutes south, as the highes l latitude reached Captain Ross gradu
 ally made his way back into warmer | waters.
 l With the departure of Captain Ros! | from that terra incognita of the SoutE
 Polar sea half century ago, its dark ness and desolation became a memory 1 only Borchgrevinck, Cook and Nord l enskiold have re-awakened the interes of the world in it. What will the new l century have to record of it's geogra phy it's present life, its geologic histo 1 1.y2