ANTARCTIC LAND OF VICTORIA—ZIMMERMANN. 349 
it is often impossible to stand up in order to reach the near-by ob- 
servatories. 
The violence and duration of the east winds result in clearing the 
snow and ice from the slopes which are constantly exposed to it. The 
contrast is striking, as shown by the photographs in the Album, be- 
tween the south and west slopes of Mount Terror, ordinarily shel- 
tered and consequently entirely covered with snow, and the east and 
northeast face of Ross Island toward Cape Crozier, where the east 
wind, whirling tempestuously and tirelessly, lays bare the rock. The 
‘same contrasts appear in the Royal Society Range and on the various 
slopes of the Ferrar Glacier. Thus at certain points the wind, as 
Messrs. J. G. Andersson and O. Nordenskj6ld have maintained, is vio- 
lent enough to check glaciation. But we think that the retreat of 
Ross Barrier and of glaciation in general is much more attributable 
to the increasing dryness of the air, the intensity of evaporation, and 
the smallness as well as the uncontrolled nature of the snowfall. 
IV. FLORA AND FAUNA. 
In such climatic conditions terrestrial vegetation is almost en- 
tirely banished. A few mosses and lichens form the sum total. 
The Discovery brought back several specimens of mosses gleaned 
in Granite Harbor and on the lower slopes of Mounts Erebus and 
Terror. They are the most southern species known, having been 
gathered near 78° south latitude. Five of the seven gathered were 
already known from the Graham Archipelago from the Strait of 
Gerlach and bear witness to the uniformity of the antarctic polar 
flora. Mr. J. Cardet adds further “the greater part bears traces 
of the bitter struggle for existence to which they are subjected. 
All form extremely compact tufts, in order to be able to resist the 
pressure of beds of snow. The Bryum argenteum, a cosmopolitan 
species, presents itself here in so stunted a form that the longest stems 
measured did not exceed a length of 3 millimeters and the largest 
leaves reached only a length of 0.35 millimeters.” The other species 
also show signs of degeneracy: deformed leaves, sick-looking stems, 
almost complete impossibility of ripening or even of developing a 
sporogone except in extraordinary circumstances. 
As representative of terrestrial fauna, one can as yet cite only a 
single insect gathered in a tuft of moss from Granite Harbor. It 
is a blue Poduride of the group collemboles, of which representa- 
tives had already been found, belonging to a different family, in 
Robertson Bay, near Cape Adare. This minute jumping’ insect, 
the form of which reminds us of our Courtilieres, is, up to this 
time, the only terrestrial animal known on the continent of Victoria 
Land. 
