kerguelen's land. 185 



year, and being reached by no drying winds, and its temperature 

 being kept down by the surrounding vast expanse of sea, has 

 hence its soil and vegetable covering permanently saturated 

 with moisture. Further, with this fact of constant precipitation 

 of moisture is connected the form of the island itself, since fjord 

 formation is accomplished only by glaciation on a large scale, and 

 this can only occur where there is a constant supply of snow. 

 The island further Kes within the line of the Antarctic drift, as 

 do also the Crozets and Prince Edward Group ; and this cold 

 current must reduce the temperature considerably. 



The island is in the region of prevailing westerly winds, the 

 course of which is in the Southern Ocean, untrammelled and 

 undisturbed by barriers of land. Since the line of greatest 

 length of the island lies in a north-west and south-east direction, 

 and the coast line, though much broken, trends on either side 

 in the same direction, the north-east side is the sheltered one, 

 and that, consequently, where are the safest anchorages, whilst 

 the south-west side is the weather one. 



The island is throughout mountainous, made up of a series 

 of steep-sided valleys separated by ridges and mountain masses, 

 which rise to very considerable heights. Mount Eoss, the 

 highest, is 6,120 feet in altitude, Mount Eichards 4,000 feet, 

 Mount Crozier 3,250, Mount Wyville Thomson 3,160, Mount 

 Hooker 2,600, Mount Moseley 2,400. 



The island thus, when viewed from the sea at a distance, 

 presents a remarkable jagged outline of sharp peaks, which is 

 most striking when the island is observed from the south. The 

 valleys run down everywhere to the sea, broadening out as they 

 approach it. The coast is broken up everywhere by deep sounds 

 or fjords, which resemble closely in form the fjords of Norway, 

 and of all other parts of the world were fjords exist. They are 

 long channel-like excavations of the coast-line, occupied by 

 arms of the sea, often shallower at the mouths* than at the 

 upper extremities, and bounded on either hand by perpendicular 

 cliffs. 



The island is of volcanic formation as far as it has yet been 



* The shallowness of the mouths of the fjords is well marked in the 

 case of Royal Sound and Rhodes Bay. 



