Captain Ross: The Antarctic Expedition

A letter sent from a local member of Captain Ross' Expedition via the ship Alarm from the Falkland Islands, from the Guernsey Star, of September 15, 1842.

The Alarm, Captain T L Stewart, left Guernsey last year for the Falkland Islands, and departed from thence at the end of May for Buenos Aires. A gentleman of this island (Guernsey), having received a letter by her, giving some account of Captain Ross, and the vessels under him, engaged on a scientific voyage of discovery, towards the Antarctic Pole, has favoured us with the following extract:

Captain Ross and the Antarctic Expedition are now here. The Erebus and Terror came in contact, on endeavouring to escape an iceberg, in the seas of the Southern Pole. The expedition will positively be here for five to six months to repair the vessels and to make observations. Captain Ross has erected an observatory at the old French fort, built by Bougainville. A most interesting series of observations are carrying on, which will greatly interest the scientific owrld. Those upon the pendulum are noted every quarter of an hour. Astronomical observations are also carefully made by the officers. Thermometers are placed both above the ground and under it; mine, with my barometers, are now doing duty with the rest, and have the honour to be registered also. The anenomenters, showing the direction and force of the winds, will add much to the valuable infomration afforded by Captain Sullivan, RN, respecting these islands. Pluviometers are also carefully registered, and we are now about the end of your Guernsey November. A tide-gauge is by the jetty, and an excellent magnetic observatory, where the dip, intensity and variation of the needle are carefully registered by able observers. The officers relieve each other in regular watches on these duties, and I never met with such devotees of science.

You would be delighted to see Captain Ross' little hammock swinging close to his darling pendulum, and a large hole in the thin partition, that he may see it at any moment, and Captain Crozier's hammock is close alongside it. The floor of his room is mother earth, from our want of timber. Captain Ross has been so kind, at my request, as to add to these observations another series to ascertain the rate of evaporation in these islands; and Hooker, the botanist, is also so good as to draw up a report on the grasses, the prevailing graminae being considered as unknown in Europe. The splendid tussack grass is the gold and the glory of these islands. It will, I hope, yet make the fortune of Orkney and Irish landowners of peat bogs. Every animal here feeds upon it with avidity, and fattens in a short time. it may be planted and cut like the guinea grass of the West Indies. The blades are about six feet long, and about 200 or 2300 spring up from one plant. I have proved, by several experiments, that one man can cut 100 bundles in a day; and that a horse will greedily devour five of these in the same time. Indeed. so fond of it are both horses and cows, that they will eat the dry tussack thatch from the roofs of the houses in preference to good grass. ABout four inches of the root eats like the mountain cabbage. It loves a rank wet peat bog with the sea spray over it. Indeed, when the sea beats with the greatest violence, and the sea spray is carried furthest, then the tussack grass thrives the best on the soil it loves. All the smaller island here, though some of them are as large as Guernsey, are covered with tussack, which is nutritious all the year. The whole of the gentlemen on the expedition are delighted with the Falkland Islands, and express them selves as being more pleased with them than even with New Zealand. Some think them in every way better for colonisation, even with the drawback of wanting timber trees there. When their observations made during their voyage are published, you will be pleased at their favourable account of the climate. In addition to all these scientific observations, the surveying department is exploring and examining different harbours, sites for different objects in a new settlement, etc. The botanist and I started from Port William, where I had been eight days, at seven o'clock in this winter morning, and on foot, arrived at Government-House by four o'clock in the afternoon, examining the country we travelled over, where there is a good deal of mossy bog. No one had done this before in one day during the winter, though the distance as the crow flies is not far.

I have tamed a guanacoe from Patagonia. He lies down before the fire, with his head on my knee, like a dog, though he is now as tall as a donkey. I hope to get more in the Falkland Islands. They browse on the poorest land, and their flesh is like venison. Their wool is thick, but I fear not so valuable as the Alpaca. The monkey from the Cape de Verde islands has hitherto kept his health, and is quite lively. I hope soon to give a favourable account of my adding to our domestic breed of animals the valuable fur seal. In going from Fort Sussex to Mount Osborne I passed several herds of wild cattle. The day was most beautiful, and so clear that I saw from Cape Dolphin to Cape Carysford, all over Berkeley Sound. Lively Island appeared at our feet. The potatoes came here in beautiful order, by the Alarm, from Guernsey. The onions, I fear were picked in the sea sand, as I lost them, and the plants, fruit trees, etc. The fruit trees should have been packed in moss, and pressed down in it.