A Voyage of Discovery and Research

The Trolle-Bonde copy of the account of the first voyage to enter what is known today as the Ross Sea, the first to sight the Admiralty Mountains, the first to see Victoria Land, Ross Island, Mounts Erebus and Terror, and the Ross Ice Shelf, amongst other momentous discoveries. Once this account became public, no one could doubt there was a great southern continent of immense proportions to be explored.

Ross was born in London, the nephew of Sir John Ross, under whom he entered the navy in 1812, accompanying him on Sir John's first Arctic voyage in search of a Northwest Passage in 1818. Between 1819 and 1827, Ross took part in four Arctic expeditions under Sir William Parry, and in 1829 to 1833, again served under his uncle on Sir John's second Arctic voyage.

Between 1839 and 1843, Ross commanded an Antarctic expedition comprising the vessels HMS Erebus and HMS Terror and charted much of the coastline of the continent. Francis Crozier was second in command of the expedition and commanded HMS Terror. Support for the expedition had been arranged by Francis Beaufort, hydrographer of the Navy and a member of several scientific societies. On the expedition was Joseph Dalton Hooker, who had been invited along as assistant surgeon. Erebus and Terror were bomb vessels – an unusual type of warship named after the mortar bombs they were designed to fire and constructed with extremely strong hulls, to withstand the recoil of the mortars, which were to prove of great value in thick ice.

In 1841, James Ross discovered the Ross Sea, Victoria Land, and the volcanoes Mount Erebus and Mount Terror, which were named for the expedition's vessels. They sailed for 250 nautical miles (460 km) along the edge of the low, flat-topped ice shelf they called the Victoria Barrier, later named "Ross Ice Shelf" in his honour. In the following year, he attempted to penetrate south at about 55°W, and explored the eastern side of what is now known as James Ross Island, discovering and naming Snow Hill Island and Seymour Island. It is interesting to note that Ross reported that Admiralty Sound (which he named Admiralty Inlet) appeared to Ross to have been blocked by glaciers at its southern end. He was elected to the Royal Society in 1848 and knighted in 1844.

First edition; 2 vols, 8vo (23 x 15 cm); 8 maps (3 folding, 1 full-page), 8 lithograph plates (1 folding), 19 text illustrations, bookplates to pastedowns; publisher's original blue cloth, gilt pictorial vignettes to upper covers, decorated in blind to spine and lower cover, light fade to spines as typical, hinges a little weak, an excellent untouched copy; lii, [4], 366; v-x (i-iv not published), [4], 447 pp.

Abbey (Travel) 610; Rosove 276.A1; Spence 993; Taurus 9.