Sir James Clark Ross was an English admiral and Antarctic explorer. He was born in 1800 at London and died in 1862. He made five successful voyages to the Arctic regions with his uncle, Sir John Ross, and with Sir W E Parry. From 1829 to 1833 he was engaged in further voyages with his uncle, and in 1831, during one of them, reached the north magnetic pole. From 1839 to 1843 he commanded the expedition of the 'Erebus' and 'Terror' into the Antarctic seas, and reached latitude 78 degrees 10 minutes south. In 1847 he published 'Voyage of Discovery and Research in the Southern and Antarctic Seas', and in 1848 to 1849 took command of the ' Enterprise' in one of the numerous searches for Sir John Franklin. Research James Clark Ross
Sir John Franklin was an English explorer. He was born in 1786 at Spilsby, Lincolnshire and died in 1847. After joining the navy as a midshipman when he was 14 he saw action at the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801 He afterwards accompanied Captain Flinders on his voyage to the coast of Australia from 1801 to 1803). Shortly after his return he was appointed to the Bellerophon, and had charge of her signals during the battle of Trafalgar. Two years later he joined the Bedford, which was employed successively in the blockade of Flushing, on the coast of Portugal, and on the coast of America. On the last station she took part in the attack on New Orleans in 1814, when John Franklin was slightly wounded. His arctic work began in 1819, when he conducted an overland expedition for the exploration of the north coast of America from Hudson's Bay to the mouth of the Coppermine River.
On his return to England he published a narrative of the expedition, was promoted to the rank of captain, and elected a FRS. In a second expedition he surveyed the coast from the mouth of the Coppermine west to Point Beechy, thus traversing in his two expeditions about a third of the distance between the Atlantic and the Pacific. On his return in 1827 he received the honour of knighthood. After serving for some years in the Mediterranean he held the post of governor of Tasmania from 1836 to 1843.
In 1845 he took command of the Erebus and Terror in what proved his last Polar Expedition. The problem was an arctic water-way between the Atlantic and the Pacific. The expedition was seen in Melville Bay two months later, but from that time no direct reports were received from it. Many expeditions were sent in search of him both from Britain and America, but with little success. At last an expedition, sent out under M'Lintock in 1857, discovered in 1859, at Point Victory, in King William's Land, a document which had been deposited in a cairn thirteen years before, and gave the latest details of the ill-fated expedition. This paper stated that Sir John Franklin died on the llth of June, 1847; that the ships were abandoned in April 1848; and that the crews, 105 in number, had started for the Great Fish River. None were ever heard of again, but many relics of the party were subsequently recovered. Research John Franklin
Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker was a British botanist. He was born in 1817 and died in 1911. The son of Sir William Jackson Hooker, in 1839 he graduated MD of Glasgow University, and immediately joined the Antarctic expedition of the Erebus and Terror under Sir J C Ross, publishing on his return the Botany of the Antarctic Voyage. In 1847 - 1851 he travelled in the Himalayas, and his Himalayan Journals embody the results of the journey. In this connection he also published The Rhododendrons of the Sikkim Himalaya. Other works of his are: The Student's Flora of the British Islands; The Flora of British India; Journal of a Tour in Morocco. He and George Bentham wrote the great work Genera Plantarum, published 1862-1883. In 1865 he became director of Kew Gardens, but resigned in 1885; he was made Companion of the Bath in 1869; president of the Royal Society in 1873; KnightCommander of the Star of India in 1877. Research Joseph Hooker 2
In Greek mythology, Charon was the son of Erebus and Nyx. He was the ferryman who transported the dead across the river Styx to the Underworld of Hades. Charon was depicted as a squalid, mean, sprightly, bad tempered old man. Charon demanded a fee of an Obol for the journey across the river Styx, and to this end the Greeks buried their dead with an Obol coin in their mouth with which to pay Charon. Hercules forced Charon to ferry him into the Underworld, and Hades punished Charon by binding him in chains for a year. Research Charon
Hemera was the Greek goddess of day. She was born from Erebus and Nyx. She emerged from Tartarus as Nyx left it and returned to it as she was emerging from it. Research Hemera
HMS Erebus was a British monitor of 7200 tons displacement built under the Great War Emergency War Programme and launched in 1916. HMS Erebus was powered by Babcock boilers providing a top speed of 14.1 knots. She carried a complement of 315 and was armed with two 15 inch guns; two 3 inch anti-aircraft guns and twelve smaller guns. Research Erebus
Abbreviations
Research James Clark Ross
