§ 763-7G7. TIDE-llirS AND .SEA DIUFT. 411 



7G3. The sargasso to the west of the Cape of Good Hope, though 

 The African sargasso. Small, Is pcrhaps the best defined of them all. Men- 

 tion is generally made of it in the log as "rock-weed" and "drift 

 matter." Now when it is recollected that weeds have been found 

 as frequently nearly (§ 760) in this small space as they have been 

 in the large space between the Cape and Australia, the reader 

 will be able to form a more correct idea as to the relative abun- 

 dance of weed in these seas of weeds. 



764. By going far enough south, icebergs may be found on any 

 Icebergs. meridian ; but in searching for them, we can only 

 look where commerce carries our colleagues of the sea. Out of 

 the 1843 tracks traced on the polar side of 35° S., only 109 make 

 mention of ice. Few of these went, except in doubling Cape Horn, 

 beyond the jDarallel of 55° S., therefore we have not been able to 

 trace the ice back into the "chambers of the frost." We can only 

 say that north of 50° antarctic icebergs most abound between the 

 meridians of 15° W. and 55° E. 



7C5. As a rule, the bergs which are the largest last longest, and 

 The larc St drift far- ^pproach ucarcst to the equator. Here, then, is the 

 ^^'''^- great line of antarctic drift ; by studying it we 



may perhaps catch a glimmer of light from south polar shores. 

 These icebergs, be it remembered, have drifted north through a 

 belt of westerly winds. Their course, therefore, was probably not 

 due north, but to the east of that rhomb. 



766. Tracing this line of drift, then, backward in a southwester- 

 The line of antarctic ^J dircctiou, it should guidc US to that part of the 

 ^^^' southern continent where the icebergs have their 

 principal nursery. This would take us to the sources of the Hum- 

 boldt current, and seem to indicate that these glaciers are launch- 

 ed in its waters; but, as their motion is slow, the winds bear the 

 bergs to \h.Q east, while the general drift sets them to the north. 



767. Arrived at this point, fiords, deep bays, and capacious 

 Necessity for, and ad- gulfs loom up bcforc the imagination, reminding us 



vantages of an an tare- ^ . ., ^ l*j.1 



tic expedition, to asK thc qucstiou, is thcrc not embosomed m the 

 antarctic continent a Mediterranean, the shores of which are favor- 

 able to the growth and the launching of icebergs of tremendous 

 size? and is not the entrance to this sea near the meridian of 

 Cape Horn, perhaps to the west of it ? Circumstances like these 

 beget longings, and we sigh for fresh antarctic explorations. Sure- 



