452 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA. 



841. " There is now no doubt," says Dr. Jilek, in his Lehrbuch 

 Dr.jiiek. dcr OceanograpHe, "that around the south pole 



there is extended a great continent mainly within the polar circle, 

 since, although we do not know it in its whole extent, yet the por- 

 tions with which we have become acquainted, and the investiga- 

 tions made, furnish sufficient evidences to infer the existence of 

 such with certainty. This southern or antarctic continent ad- 

 vances farthest northward in a peninsula S.S.E. of the southern 

 end of America, reaching in Trinity Land almost to 62° south 

 latitude. Outwardly these lands exhibit a naked, rocky, partly 

 volcanic desert, with high rocks destitute of vegetation, always 

 covered with ice and snow, and so surrounded with ice that it is 

 difficult or impossible to examine the coasts very closely. * * * 



842. " The principal discoverers of these coasts are (Wilkes), 

 Antarctic expeditions. Dumout d'Urville, and Eoss (the younger), of whom 

 the latter in 1842 followed a coast over 100 miles between 72° and 

 79° south latitude, and 160° and 170° east longitude, to which 

 he gave the name Victoria Land, and on which he discovered a 

 volcano (Erebus) 10,200 feet high in 167° east longitude and 77° 

 south latitude, as well as another extinct one (Terror) 10,200 feet 

 high, and then discovered the magnetic south pole."* 



* Text-book of Oceanography for the Use of the Imperial Naval Academy, by Dr. 

 August Jilek, Vienna, 1857. 



