A Fortunate Choice--Characteristic Southern Bergs--First Sight of the Continent--More British Territory--A Mighty Volcanic Display--Nearing the Magnetic Pole--The Antarctic Barrier--A Myth Dispelled--A Second Attempt--Held by the Ice--Third and Last Voyage--A Double Discovery. The American and French expeditions having already selected areas for their operations, Sir James Ross, not wishing to clash with them in any way, directed his attention to that part of the Antarctic lying to the south of Australia and New Zealand as his sphere of operations. Fortune favoured him in this selection, for it is at this part of the Antarctic region--situated between the meridians of 160° E. and 160° W. longitude--that open water extends farthest into the high latitudes. He chose the meridian of 170° E. as the line on which to sail to the south. It was on this meridian that Balleny, in 1839, had found open water as high as 69° S. The _Erebus_ and _Terror_ were equally fortunate, and they were well to the south before they encountered sufficient ice to prove difficult to navigation. Mostly they encountered icebergs, and they were thus afforded excellent opportunities to note the peculiarities of the southern bergs, and to compare them with those of the Arctic. There was a manifest difference in both form and structure. Those of the Antarctic showed little variety in shape, and in this they were in marked contrast to the Arctic bergs. The bergs of the South were very solid in appearance, with perpendicular grooves on the sides, and level table-top summits. In size they ranged from 120 to 180 feet in height, with a length varying from a few hundred yards to a couple of miles. Land was first sighted on January 11, 1841, when the ships were in lat. 70° 23' S. and long. 174° 50' E. The appearance of the land suggested the tops of mountain peaks fully a hundred miles away. As the ships sailed on, other peaks showed above the horizon, both to the east and the west, and the majesty of their size left no room for doubt that they were part of an area of land attaining to continental proportions. In his account of the expedition, Sir James Ross wrote: "It was a beautifully clear evening, and we had a most enchanting view of the two magnificent ranges of mountains, whose lofty peaks, perfectly covered with eternal snow, rose to elevations varying from 7000 to 10,000 feet above the level of the ocean. The glaciers that filled their intervening valleys, and which descended from near the mountain summits, projected, in many places, several miles into the sea, and terminated in lofty, perpendicular cliffs. In a few places the rock broke through the icy covering, by which alone we could be assured that land formed the nucleus of this, to appearance, enormous iceberg."