Life and Letters:
Chapter Two

The Antarctic Voyage: Preliminaries

[Editor’s note: this chapter was pp.37–53 in the printed edition.
The original footnotes are shown in {curly brackets} : clicking on one will take you to the list of notes.]

Joseph Hooker had received a unique bringing up in his father’s house. He did not so much learn botany as grow up in it. At one-and-twenty he was probably the best-equipped botanist of his years, and he was just finishing his medical course. From his father’s position he also received unique opportunity. Sir William enjoyed the friendship of many influential men, scientific and official, who kept him in touch with any scientific projects that were taken up by Government. Two such were afoot in 1838–9: one, Ross’s expedition to the Antarctic; the other, Captain H. D. Trotter’s {Note 1} to the Niger. Each would require a naturalist. Had Joseph Hooker failed to secure a place with Ross, he would almost certainly have joined the other ill-fated expedition, most of the Europeans on which died of fever.

James Clark Ross, the distinguished Arctic explorer, was already known to Sir William through their common friend, Dr. Richardson of Haslar. He had told Sir William his prospect of leading the Antarctic expedition which only awaited the Government’s definite authorisation. Now in the early autumn of 1838 he was paying a visit to the Hookers’ close friends and neighbours, the Smiths of Jordan Hill, whose names in successive generations will often recur in these pages. James Smith {Note 2} himself was keenly alive to all scientific interests. Knowing what was afoot, he invited Sir William and Joseph to breakfast that the young man might be presented to Ross. It was an unforgettable morning. Sixty years later, writing to Sabina Smith (Mrs. Paisley), Hooker recalled how he had longed to be at the second table, where Ross sat with the young daughters of the house and kept the party lively. His own turn came later. Ross received him very kindly and promised to take him if he would prepare himself for such a duty. One point was that he should first qualify as surgeon. This meant much hard work: as he wrote to Dawson Turner, October 8, 1835

Papa has I know told you of the distant prospect there is of my going on expedition to the Antarctic Ocean: I can hardly conceive my being prepared both as a Medical Man and Naturalist; to pass my necessary examinations will be a great push, while again if I do not devote a good part of this winter to Natural History, I had better not go at all. If the expedition does start and I do not go, I shall be dreadfully disappointed, though I am sure I had better not go at all than go ill prepared: the matter will, I hope, stimulate me to exertion.

From a letter of Sir William’s to Dawson Turner, dated January 9, 1839, we catch a glimpse of the difficulties to be overcome and the influences set moving to overcome them.

To-day’s post brought me along with your letter one from Dr. Richardson telling me that their Antarctic Expedition had on Saturday received Lord Melbourne’s {Note 3} sanction and would sail on the 1st of May. Dr. Richardson fears that Joseph may not be qualified in time, and indeed strictly speaking he cannot be until the 5th of May: but I have written to Edinburgh to endeavour to have that difficulty obviated, and I have asked the Duke of Bedford {Note 4} for a letter to Sir Wm. Burnett {Note 5} (the head of the Medical Navy Board), and I have written to Sir John Barrow {Note 6} and Capt. Ross: and I trust there will be no difficulties in the way. The poor boy is delighted, and I trust it may be in every way for his good.

Joseph joined him in London; on the 18th he reports that the various friends whose aid he had invoked had duly exerted their influence, and Sir W. Burnett

promised to take Joseph into the Navy as soon as he had completed his curriculum [the end of April] and, if I wished, to give him an appointment at Haslar Hospital and a charge in the Museum there with £120 a year. Then he would be employed until the Antarctic Expedition was determined upon, for there are some difficulties in the way of it, and it is doubtful if it will sail before next year. Joseph has quite won Brown’s {Note 7} heart by bringing him some Van Diemen’s Land plants which the boy had been studying with considerable attention. We dined yesterday at the Royal Sec. Club and attended the meeting in the evening.

Thus he can add:

My journey has been fully answered in respect to Joseph … Humanly speaking, his way is clear before him for an honourable scientific career.

And on June 18:

Should it please God that Joseph returns safe from his present expedition, and if I have the same friends I have now, it may be in my power to keep this appointment [the Glasgow professorship] in the family by applying to have it made over to Joseph.

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As it turned out the preparations took nearly five months longer; part of this time Hooker spent at Haslar, ‘a most improving situation under Dr. Richardson’s eye,’ just as his future friend, Huxley, was to do seven years later, while waiting for his appointment, so long delayed because the discerning Richardson kept him back till a scientific post offered in the Rattlesnake. The remainder of the time from the middle of June, Hooker spent as Assistant Surgeon attached to the Erebus, at Chatham, where the ships were fitting out—Assistant Surgeon and Botanist—for it was in this capacity that he went after all, not Naturalist to the expedition, as he had confidently hoped. For that responsible post Ross finally determined to take a man of longer standing and some established repute, albeit the young Hooker pressed him very shrewdly, as appears from the following descriptions of some official interviews,

Golden Cross, Charing Cross: April 27, 1839.

MY DEAR FATHER,—You will be surprised to hear from me so soon again, and I assure you the unfortunate cause has given me much vexation.

In my last letter I told you that I had not seen Captain Ross; I have since, after much hunting, and the result of the interview has been most unfortunate. The following is a correct statement.

One of the first questions I asked him was in what capacity he was to take me; he told me ‘as Asst. Surgeon and Botanist,’ adding ‘that he had appointed the Surgeon, Dr. or Mr. McCormick, {Note 8} to be Zoologist.’ I saw at once that this would completely interfere with all my duties, but I said nothing, desiring first to know whether he would take me in any other capacity; so I asked ‘whether he would take a Naturalist with him and give him accommodation, provided Government would sanction or send him.’ He put off my question twice, evidently seeing my drift, which I did not wish to conceal; telling me that such a person as a Naturalist must be perfectly well acquainted with every branch of Nat. Hist., and must be well known in the world beforehand, such a person as Mr. Darwin; {Note 9} here I interrupted him with’ what was Mr. D. before he went out? he, I daresay, knew his subject better than I now do, but did the world know him 2 the voyage with FitzRoy was the making of him (as I had hoped this exped. would me).’ Captain Ross answered, ‘Well, perhaps you are right, but at any rate it would never be worth the while of any one to go, who was really capable, as far as mental acquirements are concerned.’ Being determined not to be put off, I asked him again ‘would he take a Government Naturalist?’ He said, ‘Certainly, and give him every accommodation,’ at the same time adding, what was as much as to say, ‘You would never be fit.’ I said nothing, but must have looked very sorry and angry, which however he did not see, as he went on, speaking as kindly and almost as affectionately as ever, offering to write me letters of introduction to the surgeon and chief officers of the ship at Chatham, charging them to give me every opportunity of going ashore. I thanked him and left him. Major Sabine was in the room at the same time, and he must have felt for me, after having been so anxious that I should be sent as Naturalist alone. I then went immediately to Mr. Children, {Note 10} who was highly indignant, and said I must not go if I am not to be the only Naturalist, or at least the head Naturalist, for that it is utterly impossible that we should agree, each having an equal claim on going ashore, and he the better right. Mr. Brown and Mr. J. E. Gray {Note 11} both said the same thing, and Mr. Children then offered to go to Sir William Burnett to put off my examination, telling me to meet him afterwards.

This I did, and found Sir William had put off my examination till when I choose, and had strongly disadvised my going except as the only Naturalist in the ship, the more especially as Dr. McCormick was to be my superior. Mr. Brown has gone to Capt. Beaufort, {Note 12} Mr. Lubbock, {Note 13} and Mr. Forster, {Note 14} to recommend my being sent as Naturalist, but how can I go, when Capt. Ross would be obliged to take me, and at the same time think me unfit? There therefore remain only two ways or situations under which I can go, either as Naturalist to the expedition or as Asst. Surgeon and Naturalist to the Erebus, a situation which Sir William Burnett promised me if I liked it. You can, I know, but have the same opinion as Mr. Children and Brown. The more I think of it, the more perplexed do I feel. That Capt. Ross did not intend to treat me thus two weeks ago I am sure, from his asking me to tell the quantity of preserves for animals required, and his great good nature to me now precludes me from attributing to him any other motive than that he is misguided, and that Dr. McCormick (who, he told me, had been preparing for such an Exped. for three years) has been palmed upon him by someone. Supposing I were to go under these circumstances, all my notes on Molluscs and sea animals will naturally revert, from the Admiralty, to the Zoologist, besides which he will have more time on shore than I can. The most painful part of my duty remains to be done, viz., going to Capt. Ross and respectfully declining his appointment and telling him that I am still trying for the appointment of Naturalist to the Expedition, which all strongly advise me to do. Mr. Children and Brown have been most kind, the former especially; I can never thank him too much; I have invariably made a point of telling them everything without the smallest concealment, and have been glad to find how their opinions coincide with mine. On your account, after all the kindness, trouble, and expense you have put yourself to for my comfort and good, I feel this annoyance very deeply, but you may rest assured that I shall conduct myself well and prudently (doing nothing without the best advice) as far as lies in me. I shall deeply regret it, if I lose the chance of going with the Exped., but I should much more deeply regret going against the advice of my friends and losing my time.

Matters straightened themselves out, however. ‘I am appointed from the Admiralty as Asst. Surgeon to the Erebus, and Capt. Ross considers me the Botanist to the Expedition and promises me every opportunity of collecting that he can grant.’ McCormick, as will be seen, proved anything but exacting during the voyage, and indeed made friends with him at once when he reached Chatham, and looked after him when he met with a slight accident.

A letter of July 13 to his father tells of another official interview, the tone of which he resented and remembered against the Society when it made claims on his work or the disposal of his collection

At the same time as your letter was brought off one came from Capt. Ross calling me up to town on Tuesday to attend the Commission of the Royal Society for the purpose of giving instructions to the Botanist. Mr. Royle, {Note 15} Dr. Horsfall, {Note 16} Mr. Pereira {Note 17} and Capt. Ross were there. They gave me a long list of advices with little new in them or worth reporting but an order to send seeds to the Bet. Gardens in India; you can guess who wanted this. Pereira talked a great deal and, without exaggerating, much nonsense, confusing the genera of different localities in an extraordinary manner. None of them seemed cordial to me in the least degree. On leaving the room, no one even wished me a pleasant or successful voyage, except Mr. Robertson, {Note 18} the Secretary, who has always been very kind to me whenever I have occasion to attend at the R.S. rooms.

A few more extracts

The Gunroom officers are about to petition Ross that I may mess with them; it is extremely kind of them and chiefly McCormick’s doing, but I hope Ross will refuse, as I cannot, if they offer, and it will put me to an additional expense of no mean importance.

H.M.S. Erebus, Chatham, July 28, 1839.

Mr. McCormick returned last week from Devonshire, and finds that the Government are very loth to make such large grants for the Natural History department, and Sir Wm. Parker {Note 19} says he does not see what Nat. Hist. has to do with the Expedition at all, which has annoyed Copt. Ross exceedingly. Anything that they won’t supply my Surgeon will make up from his own pocket; he is very zealous indeed in the cause and offers me every encouragement. . . . In the way of medical duty I have very little to do as far as regards the Erebus, but the men of the Terror are so much inferior in constitution and morals that there are 5–1 of them ill, to what there are of our men. There are besides a whole swarm of women and children on the lower deck of the hulk, who are a perpetual annoyance.

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Sir William paid him a visit at Chatham; and though warmly welcomed by such of his future companions as were there, writes on his return home (August 27, 1839):

I could have wished you had some zealous Natural History companions to keep up the zest of the thing, and though I think very favourably of most of your companions, I could have wished to have witnessed their conversation taking a more scientific and soberer turn. Above all I should have liked to have seen them pay more respect to the Sabbath. Do you do so, my dear Boy, and carry something of the Sabbath into the week and I am sure you will be a happier man for it.

The days pass in preparation till well on into September.

Our Mess Room [he writes to his grandfather] is fitted up with redwood and painted Birds-eye Maple; it is abundantly lighted from above and calculated to hold ten, half that number is all that will at present occupy it. Each has a small cabin of his own; its dimensions are 6 x 4; it is fitted with a bed-place, a book shelf, a seat, table, etc.; below the bed are very large drawers for our things; it is lighted by a large circular bull’s eye on deck; we fit them up as we please; mine is to be painted satinwood, with brass rods and curtains before the door and bed, to be used in hot climates when, with the door shut, they would be far too close; the bull’s eye is then removed and a grating replaces it, which ensures a current of air.

He expects his whole outfit, uniform, books, instruments, private stores, to cost £150. His grandfather sends him a travelling thermometer. He had economically waited to buy a new watch until his first expenses were settled; now he was forestalled by his father, who gave him ‘a beautiful Chronometer watch.’ {Note 20}

It is the admiration of all the officers, so much so, that ‘I expect that it will be taken from me as soon as we get to sea. Of books also I have a good store and some for general reading, all Constable’s ‘Miscellany,’ for instance. The rest are chiefly Botanical with a few on Zoology and Geology. . . . My messmates are all readers and careful of books: they are delighted we have lots of Cook’s {Note 21} and Weddell’s. {Note 22}

As botanist [he writes in his Journal] my outfit from Government consisted of about twenty-five reams of paper, of three kinds-blotting, cartridge, and brown; also two Botanising vascula and two of Mr. Ward’s {Note 23} invaluable cases for bringing home plants alive, through latitudes of different temperatures. I was further, through the kindness of my friends [i.e., his father], equipped with Botanical books, microscopes, etc., to the value of about £50, besides a few volumes of Natural History and general literature.

Thus Natural History came off very badly in the matter of public equipment. Of this and his own work as a volunteer in the neglected department of marine zoology he writes seventy years later to Dr. Bruce of the Scotia expedition

It does not, I think, appear in the Narrative of the Voyage that I was the sole worker of the tow-net, bringing the captures daily to Ross, and helping him with their preservation, as well as drawing a great number of them for him.

Except some drying paper for plants I had not a single instrument or book supplied to me as a naturalist—all were given to me by my father. I had, however, the use of Ross’s library, and you may hardly credit it, but it is a fact that not a single glass bottle was supplied for collecting purposes, empty pickle bottles were all we had, and rum as a preservative from the ship’s stores.

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The epic days of scientific exploration began when Banks and his men joined Cook on his first voyage. To this epoch still belong the voyages of Darwin in the Beagle and of Hooker in the Erebus. But the expedition to the Antarctic, which was to give Hooker his first great opportunity, was not intended simply to be a search for new lands nor a mere ‘dash to the Pole.’ Geographical discovery was subsidiary to its main scientific purpose—that of filling up the wide blanks in, the knowledge of terrestrial magnetism in the Southern hemisphere, especially in the higher latitudes.

Much had already been done in the Northern hemisphere since Halley in 1701 drew up the first chart of the variations of the compass, based upon the observations made during a voyage of discovery sent out by the English Government. Finally, thanks to Humboldt, {Note 24} a chain of magnetic observatories had been established in Germany and the Russian Empire in 1827, and extended by the famous physicist Gauss, {Note 25} in 1834, all over Europe, where simultaneous observations were constantly made. It was needful to perfect the charts not only of variation, but of dip and magnetic intensity, elements which were already known to be in a constant state of fluctuation, undergoing local and transitory as well as periodical changes. Observations, moreover, must extend over a long period.

The many explorers within the Arctic Circle had recorded much information. Ross himself had found the Northern Magnetic Pole and seen the compass dip vertically to 90°, and Gauss had calculated the Southern Magnetic Pole to lie in 72° 35 S., 152° 30 E. But as his materials were imperfect and the position he had calculated for the Northern Pole was 3° wrong, he inferred the Southern Pole to be in 66° S. and 160° E. His inference required verification. Permanent stations should be established at suitable spots in the Southern hemisphere, where simultaneous observations might be maintained in connection with the European stations, while the Erebus and Terror acted as floating observatories on their voyage. Besides the hourly records of the three variables every day for three years, on the four ‘term days’ of the European Magnetic Association simultaneous records were to be kept at intervals of not more than five minutes during the twenty-four hours: in fact, on the term day which fell in Tasmania, Ross and his colleagues took these observations at intervals of two and a half minutes.

These considerations took shape in a series of resolutions passed by the British Association for the Advancement of Science in 1838. They were pressed upon Lord Melbourne’s Government by an influential Committee and strongly supported by the President and Council of the Royal Society, to whom they were referred as the acknowledged advisers of Government in matters of science. But it was not till the foreign scientific institutions, led by Humboldt himself at Sabine’s suggestion, threw their weight into the scale, pleading for national cooperation in magnetic work where private enterprise was out of the question, and urging the superiority of the British Navy and the unequalled experience of its officers in polar work, that the Government early in 1839 agreed to fit out the expedition at a cost of £100,000.

As a result two exploring ships, each with a crew of sixty-four men, were carefully fitted out under the experienced Arctic navigator, James Clark Ross, who had shared in no less than seven Polar expeditions—namely, the Erebus, a bomb of 378 tons, ‘of strong build and capacious hold,’ especially strengthened to bear the pressure and shocks of the ice, and the Terror, 340 tons, which had been similarly strengthened for Arctic service in the winter of 1836, when many whalers were reported beset by the ice in Baffin’s Bay, and which had been employed the following summer by Sir George Back in his attempt to reach Repulse Bay. ‘They possessed every superiority,’ writes Hooker, ‘except that of sailing qualities for manoeuvring amongst ice.’ So well found were the ships that they suffered no vital injury from storm or collision, or from frenzied battering by the masses of pack ice in the long-drawn fury of the Antarctic gales: nor, thanks to the precautions taken, did the crews suffer from the dreaded scurvy which cut short the rival cruise of the Astrolabe and Zélée under D’Urville.{Note 26}

Ross was instructed to land the observers and instruments for fixed magnetic observatories at St. Helena, the Cape, and Van Diemen’s Land, finally calling at Sydney, the centre of reference for magnetic determinations. He carried with him portable observatories, and with these he was to make special observations at intermediate oceanic islands (Kerguelen’s Land being particularly recommended) simultaneously with the fixed observatories and those in Europe.

Then, after refitting at Van Diemen’s Land, he was to begin his southward explorations, first to determine the Magnetic Pole, and incidentally to extend geographical discovery, ‘while seeking fresh places on which to plant your observatory in all directions from the Pole.’

The Antarctic afforded more of ‘those yet unvisited tracts of geographical research’ than the Arctic. It had been visited by fewer navigators, and the conditions were less favourable. Cook in 1774, then Bellinghausen the Russian, Weddell with his furthest south of 74°, and Biscoe and Balleny, Messrs. Enderby’s sealing captains, all between 1820 and 1839 had passed the Antarctic Circle. Balleny was the immediate predecessor of the French, the American, and the British expeditions in 1840 and the following years. After the lapse of seventy-three years the soundness of his observations has received striking confirmation. In the course of his voyage he obviously saw the ice wall of Côte Clairee, ‘discovered ‘the following year by D’Urville. This, however, he took for an enormous iceberg, and ultimately decided that what seemed to be land behind it was probably a distant fog bank hanging over the ice. Early in 1912 the Aurora, belonging to the Mawson expedition, sailed over the position of the supposed land.

This Côte Clairee was a sore point for the French and American expeditions, for Lieutenant Wilkes {Note 27} of the United States Navy ‘discovered ‘it independently a week after D’Urville, and a great contention for priority ensued. With all Ross’s admiration for the courage and endurance of both, the reader divines in his plain words a touch of national pride as he records at full length Balleny’s superior claim, if land there was, to either: more than this, he must have dimly felt a kind of poetic justice in the event. For although he had been on a friendly footing with Wilkes, in the outfit of whose expedition he had taken much interest, and who later sent him privately a chart of his discoveries before the Erebus sailed South from Tasmania, he was somewhat nettled on reaching that island in 1840 to find that both the French and American expeditions, knowing his plans, had endeavoured to forestall them; and he writes (‘Voyage’ i. 116) that this ‘certainly did greatly surprise me. I should have expected their national pride would have caused them rather to have chosen any other path in the wide field before them than one thus pointed out, if no higher considerations bad power to prevent such an interference.’

Acknowledging, however, that they were within their rights in so doing, whatever the results to him, he gave up his original plan. His instructions left him a certain latitude, and, where England had so constantly led, he did not choose to follow. He therefore resolved to start his cruise in search of the Magnetic Pole farther to the east along the meridian of 170° E. His chief reason for choosing this particular meridian ‘was its being that upon which Balleny had in the summer of 1839 attained to the latitude of 69° and there found an open sea.’ It was not, he adds, because he feared to fail where the American and French had failed to do more than barely cross the Antarctic Circle. Their ships, unlike the Erebus and Terror, were ill-adapted to battle with the ice. Even in longitude 170°, where Ross met with a belt of pack ice 200 miles wide, they could not have forced their way through. Thus in 1839–40, though D’Urville added Louis Philippe Land to the South Shetlands group—south of Cape Horn—and south of Tasmania traced Adélie Land for about 150 miles before approaching the supposititious Côte Clairée;—though Wilkes followed the same line with its barrier of pack ice another 20° westwards, the ice, impenetrable by their ships, debarred them from so much as reaching latitude 70° S. In signal contrast to their moderate achievements, Ross himself, thus diverted from his original plan, was rewarded with superlative success in the discovery of Victoria Land, with its great volcano Mount Erebus, 13,000 feet high, in 77½° S., and its stupendous ice barrier, which he traced for 250 miles, twice forcing his way beyond the 78th parallel.

Unable to effect a landing so as to visit the southern Magnetic Pole, 150 miles inland, he was able to place it very accurately from abundant observations.

Ross made three expeditions to the South in the Erebus and Terror—the first, 1840–1, from Tasmania and back to Tasmania again, lasting five months, when he discovered Victoria Land and the Great Ice Barrier; the second, 1841–2, from New Zealand and back to the Falkland Islands, east of Cape Horn, lasting four and a half months, when he revisited the Barrier; the third, 1842–3, from the Falkland Islands and back to the Cape, lasting three and a half months, when he visited Louis Philippe Land and the South Shetlands. Between the first and second came a stay of three months in Tasmania, a visit to Sydney and a stay of three months in New Zealand. Between the second and third came a stay of, altogether, six months at the Falklands, broken by a seven weeks’ expedition to Hermite Island in Tierra del Fuego, and west of Cape Horn.

The original voyage out to Tasmania, which lasted nearly eleven months, followed an unusual course in order to touch at various oceanic islands, to establish observatories there and at the Cape, and to pass certain points of magnetic interest. The journey home from the Cape, however, by way of St. Helena, Ascension, and Rio, occupied only four months. Thus four years had elapsed since leaving England on September 30, 1839, before Ross and his men once more reached English soil on September 4, 1843.

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