THE ANTARCTIC EEGIONS AKD THEIR CLIMATOLOGY. 449 



S74. So, in like manner, the vapour that is borne to the ant- 

 Formation of south- arctic regions by the polar-bonnd winds transports 

 ern icebergs. immense volumes of heat from, the more temperate 



latitudes of the south, and sets it free again in the polar regions 

 there. And as for the southern icebergs, they are rather of fresh 

 than of salt water ; and they are the channels through which the 

 water that the winds carry there as vapoiu: finds its way back again. 

 Being fi'esh water, and falhng on the antarctic declivities of the 

 land, it is by rills, and streams, and rains brought together, and by 

 constant accretions formed into glaciers of a size and thickness that 

 are almost impossible to be formed out of sea water unless it be 

 dashed up as spray. Moreover, on the arctic ocean the rains are 

 not so copious, and for that reason, though the climate be more 

 severe, icebergs, or rather glaciers, are not formed on so grand a 

 scale. Southern icebergs are true glaciers afloat. Arctic winds are 

 dry enough to evaporate much of the ice and snow that fall and 

 form in the north polar basin. As compared with arctic climates, 

 antarctic are marine, arctic continental; and for the very reason 

 that the Enghsh climate is cooler in summer and warmer in winter 

 than the Canadian, so is winter at the south pole much less severe 

 than winter at the north. The relative difference between the two 

 polar climates is, as the barometer indicates, even greater than is the 

 difference between a Canadian and an English winter. 



875. As tending to confirm these views touching the mildness of 

 Mild climate in 63^.8. unknown autarctic climates, the statement of Captain 

 Smyley, an American sealer, may be mentioned. He planted a 

 self-registering thermometer on the South Shetlands, lat. 63° S., 

 and left it for several winters, dui'ing which time it went no lower 

 than-5°Fahi\* 



876. The low barometer and the imphed heavy precipitation in 

 Antarctic ice-drift, tho autarctic rcgious are not the only witnesses that 



may be called up in favom- of bluffs and bold shores to the antarctic 

 continent. The icebergs, in their mute way, tell that the physical 

 features of that unexplored land are such, in its northern slopes, as 

 to favour the formation of glaciers on the shore, thence to be launched 

 and become the huge icebergs that, on their jomney 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 suggested itself that information might be 



* Maury's Sailing Directions, 



2 G 



