§ 87.-;, 87G. THE ANTARCTIC REGIONS, ETC. 467 



slopes, iis to favor the formation of glaciers on the shore, to become 

 the huge icebergs that, on their journey to the milder climates of 

 the north, are encountered far away at sea. After a somewhat 

 attentive, but by no means a thorough examination and study of 

 antarctic icebergs as they endanger the routes of navigation, the 

 idea has been suggested that information may be gathered from 

 them concerning antarctic regions which would be highly useful 

 to any future expedition thitherward. 



875. Tlie conditions required for Gulf-Stream-like currents, or 

 Antarctic currents, a rapid flow and rcflow of equatorial and polar 



waters between the torrid and the frigid zones, as in the northeiii 

 hemisphere, are not to be found about the antarctic regions. Of 

 all the currents that come from those regions, Humboldt's current 

 is by far the most majestic. It is believed also to be the least slug- 

 gish of them all. It certainly conveys the coldest water thence 

 to the torrid zone ; and yet it appears not to come from a nursery 

 of icebergs, for in its line of march fewer icebergs are found tlian 

 are encountered on the same parallels between other meridians, 

 but where feebler currents flow. From the arctic regions the 

 strongest currents bring down the most icebergs ; not so from the 

 antarctic. Hence the inference that, though icebergs have been 

 encountered off the shores of the antarctic continent wherever they 

 have been approached, yet it is only those which have been launch- 

 ed from particular points of that frost-bound coast which are stout 

 enough to bear transportation to the parallel of 40° south. In 

 Humboldt's current it is rare to see an iceberg as far from the pole 

 as the parallel of the fifty-fifth degree of south latitude ; but off 

 the Cape of Good Hope on one side of the Atlantic, and Cape 

 Corrientes on the other, antarctic icebergs are sometimes seen as 

 far as the parallel of S6°^ often as far as 40°. Lieutenants Warley 

 and Young, after having examined the logs of 1843 ships cruising 

 on the polar side of 35° S., report the great antarctic ice-drift to 

 be toward the Falkland Islands on one hand, and the Cape of Good 

 Hope on the other. 



876. These facts and the stories of the icebergs are very sug- 

 Antarctic explorations gestivc. lu mutc cloquencc and with great power 

 demanded. ^^^y. p]gj^(-| ^^q causc of autarctic exploration. 



Within the periphery of that circle is included an area equal in 

 extent to the one sixth part of the entire landed surface of our 



