SUMMARY OF THE VOYAGE. xi 



when bearing up, she ran along the edge of the berg in the wash of the surf. On 

 the 24th D'UrvillcBa and Macrocystis were seen in lat. 51° S., and the last berg on 

 March 25th, in lat. 47° S., the ships finally gaining the Cape of Good Hope on the 

 4th of April 1843, within two days of three years after they had first quitted that port 

 for the high southern latitudes. 



Respecting the climate of the various regions visited by the expedition, and especially 

 that which prevails within the Antarctic Circle, little need here be said ; except that the 

 vast proportion which water bears to land, tends to render the temperature uniform 

 throughout the year, and the farther south is the position, the more equable does the 

 climate seem to be. No analogy can prove more incorrect than that which compares 

 the similar degrees of latitude in the north with those of the south. The most casual 

 inspection of the map suffices to show the immense proportion of sea to land in the 

 southern hemisphere, the mass of the continents terminating to the north of lat. 40° S., 

 America alone dwindling away to the fifty-sixth degree. The scattered islands dis- 

 covered to the south of this are therefore removed from the influence of any tracts which 

 enjoy a better or continental climate. The power of the sun is seldom felt, and unless 

 in the immediate neighbourhood of land, and accompanied by a comparatively dry land- 

 wind, that luminary only draws up such mists and fogs as intercept its rays. After 

 entering the pack-ice between 55° and 65°, the thermometer seldom, during any part 

 of the summer day, rises above 32° or falls below 20° ; and while the southerly winds 

 bring snow, the northerly ones transport an atmosphere laden with moisture, which, 

 becoming at once condensed, covers the face of the ocean with white fogs of the densest 

 description. 



All islands and lands to the southward of 45° partake more or less of this inhospi- 

 table climate, which, though eminently unfavourable to a varied growth of plants, still, 

 from its equable nature, causes a degree of luxuriance to pervade all the vegetable king- 

 dom, such as is never seen in climates where the vegetable functions are suspended for 

 a large portion of the year. The remoteness of these islands from any continent, to- 

 gether with their inaccessibility, preclude the idea of their being tenanted, even in a 

 single instance, by plants that have migrated from other countries, and still more 

 distinctly do they forbid the possibility of man having been an active agent in the dis- 

 semination of them. On the contrary, the remarkable fact that some of the most 



