THE WINDS OF THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE. 435 



generally with regard to the distribution of land and water oyer 

 AT.hysicaiiawcon- the siu'face of the earth, and which, as far as it goes, 

 biiSorfof ilnd^and soems to favour the hypothesis of much land about the 

 ^•=itei- south pole ; and that circumstance is this : It seems 



to be a physical necessity that land should not be antipodal to land. 

 Except a small portion of South America and Asia, land is always 

 opposite to water. Mr. Gardner has called attention to the fact 

 that only one twenty-seventh part of the land is antipodal to land. 

 The behef is, that on the polar side of 70^ north we have mostly 

 water, not land. This law of distribution, so far as it apphes, is in 

 favour of land in the opposite zone. Einally, geographers are agreed 

 that, uTespective of the particularized facts and phenomena which 

 we have been considering, the probabilities are in favour of an ant- 

 arctic continent rather than of an antarctic ocean. 



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

 Dr. jiiek. dcr Oceauographie, "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 Vv'e 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 coast very closely. * * * 



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

 Antarctic expeditions. D'Urville, and Eoss (the youuger), 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. Augiist Jilek, Vienna, 1857. 



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