Later expeditions up to 1866 confirmed these reports. The broad circumstances of the expedition's fate were first revealed when Hudson's Bay Company doctor John Rae collected artefacts and testimony from local Inuit in 1853. The disappearance of the Franklin expedition set off a massive search effort in the Arctic. The ships were last seen by Europeans entering Baffin Bay in August 1845, by two whaling vessels. The expedition was ordered to gather magnetic data in the Canadian Arctic and to complete a crossing of the Northwest Passage, which had already been partly charted from both the east and west but had never been entirely navigated. Sir John Franklin sailed in Erebus, in overall command of the expedition, and Terror was again commanded by Francis Crozier. The ships had iron plating added to their hulls. The ships carried 12 days' supply of coal. That of Erebus was rated at 25 horsepower (19 kW) and could propel the ship at 4 knots (7.4 km/h). Both ships were outfitted with steam engines from the London and Greenwich Railway steam locomotives. In 1845 HMS Erebus and HMS Terror left Greenhithe, England on May 19, 1845, on a voyage of exploration to the Canadian Arctic, under Sir John Franklin. The future botanist Joseph Dalton Hooker, then aged 23, was assistant-surgeon to Robert McCormick. The revised edition of Gray (1846) (1875). Discovery Ships Erebus and Terror in the years 1839–1843, under the Command of Captain Sir James Clark Ross.īirds collected on the first expedition were described and illustrated by George Robert Gray and Richard Bowdler Sharpe in The Zoology of the Voyage of HMS Erebus & HMS Terror. The plants were described in the resulting The Botany of the Antarctic Voyage of H.M. They conducted studies in magnetism, and returned with oceanographic data and collections of botanical and ornithological specimens. Both ships returned to the Falkland Islands before returning to the Antarctic in the 1842–1843 season. The following season, 1842, Ross continued to survey the "Great Ice Barrier", as it was called, continuing to follow it eastward. The crew then discovered the Ross Ice Shelf, which they were unable to penetrate, and followed it eastward until the lateness of the season compelled them to return to Van Diemen's Land. Mount Erebus, on Ross Island, was named after one ship and Mount Terror after the other. In January 1841, the crews of both ships landed on Victoria Land, and proceeded to name areas of the landscape after British politicians, scientists, and acquaintances. The ships were locked in a destructive stranglehold at the foot of the iceberg until eventually Terror surged past the iceberg and Erebus broke free.After two years' service in the Mediterranean Sea, Erebus was refitted as an exploration vessel for Antarctic service, and on 21 November 1840 – captained by James Clark Ross – she departed from Van Diemen's Land (now Tasmania) for Antarctica in company with HMS Terror. The impact floored the crew members while masts snapped and were torn away. The ships crashed violently together and their rigging became entangled. Terror couldn't clear both Erebus and the iceberg, so a collision was inevitable. The ice smashed against them so violently that their masts shook in a beating that would have destroyed any ordinary vessel.Įven more dangerously, in March 1842 the Erebus and Terror came close to destroying each other.Įrebus was suddenly forced to turn across Terror's pass in order to avoid crashing headlong into an iceberg which had just become visible through the snow. In one incident, they were caught in a stormy sea full of fragments of rock-hard ice. The ships sailed into the Antarctic – which was just as perilous as the north – for three successive years in 1841, 18. Together, they circumnavigated the continent and the expedition did much to map areas of Antarctica, the Ross Ice Shelf and set the scene for future polar exploration in that area. The ships were completely refitted with additional strengthening and an internal heating system. The Erebus joined the Terror for the next expedition – to the opposite end of the Earth, the Antarctic – under the command of James Clark Ross (1839–43). 'HMS Erebus in the Ice, 1846' by François Etienne Musin ( BHC3325, © National Maritime Museum)
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