THE ANTARCTIC REGIONS. 323 



this devotion to the interests of the student to such a degree that 

 it amounted to a fault, and published their own researches under 

 the names of their students. This generous, unselfish, and high- 

 minded attitude is an inheritance in the Botanic Institute at 

 Tubingen, and is characteristic of the people among whom it is 

 situated. 







OUR PRESENT KNOWLEDGE OF THE ANTARCTIC 



REGIONS. 



By Prof. ANGELO HEILPEIN. 



IT can safely be said that we to-day know less about the antarc- 

 tic regions than of any other portion of the earth's surface. 

 We speak vaguely of an antarctic continent stretching across the 

 southern pole, and some have even gone so far as to locate its 

 boundaries, and to give an estimate of its superficial area. This 

 has been placed almost anywhere between four and six millions 

 of square miles therefore larger than, or nearly twice the size of, 

 the semi-continent of Europe. But no one is in possession of the 

 facts which would prove the existence of such a continent, al- 

 though it is by no means unlikely that it exists ; and if it does, 

 we know practically nothing of the possibilities of its flora or 

 fauna. Up to the beginning of the past year perhaps the most 

 striking definition that could be given of so-called Antarctica was 

 that it was a region whose land area was entirely destitute of a 

 flora and of a strictly terrestrial fauna. Not a vestige of moss, 

 not a shred of lichen had up to that time been discovered ; not an 

 animal, excepting aquatic birds, had been found to give life to 

 the few patches of open country that had been seen, or to the ice 

 that almost everywhere covered it. The observations of the Nor- 

 wegians Kristensen and Borchgrevink, made in the early part of 

 1895, to an extent modify this dreary conception, for at least one 

 form of cryptogamous vegetation has been found within the 

 Antarctic Circle on Possession Island and on the opposite Vic- 

 toria Land, near Cape Adare. 



If we bar out the work of the past three years (1893-'95) it can 

 be said that nearly all the knowledge that we possess of this 

 Antarctica dates from a period a half century back and more to 

 the period of the researches of Bellany, Biscoe, Dumont d'Urville, 

 Wilkes, and Sir James Clark Ross, and to no explorer are we in- 

 debted for more information than to the last-named. These inves- 

 tigators have determined the existence of certain patches of land, 

 in most cases defined by prominent mountain swellings, which 

 appear here and there behind a great barrier or wall of ice, to 

 which the name of " Antarctic Barrier " has generally been given. 



