The 1839 43 Antarctic expedition was primarily a scientific voyage. James Clark Ross, a member of the expedition that had located the Magnetic North Pole in 1831, was the natural choice to lead this mission to find the Magnetic South Pole. Although he was unsuccessful in this aim, he charted the coastline of most of the continent, collected valuable scientific data and made several important discoveries. Published in 1840, these papers were prepared by the Royal Society for the expedition and give detailed instructions on how to make the important magnetic and meteorological observations....