450 PHYSICAL GEOGEAPHY OF THE SEA, AXD ITS METEOPvOLOGY. 



gathered from them concerning antarctic regions which would be 

 higlily useM to any future expedition thitherward. 



877. The conditions required for Grulf-Stream Kke currents, or a 

 Antarctic currents, rapid flow and reflow of equatorial and polar waters 

 between the torrid and the frigid zones, as in the northern hemi- 

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

 currents that come from those regions, Humboldt's cm-rent is by far 

 the most majestic. It is beheved also to be the least sluggish 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 Kne of march fewer icebergs are found than 

 are encountered on the same parallels between other meridians, but 

 where feebler currents flow. From the arctic regions the strongest 

 cmTcnts 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 launched 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 G-ood Hope on one side of the Atlantic, and Cape Corrientes on 

 the other, antarctic icebergs are sometimes seen as far as the parallel 

 of 35^, often as far as 40°. Lieutenants Warley and Young, after 

 having exammed the logs of 1843 ships cruising on the polar side of 

 35^ S., report the great antarctic ice-drift to be towards the Falkland 

 Islands on one hand, and the Cape of Good Hope on the other. 



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

 Antarctic expiora- gostivo. In muto cloquencc and with great power 

 tioos demanded. ^]^gy plead the causc of antarctic exploration. Within 

 the periphery of that circle is included an area equal in extent to 

 the one sixth part of the enthe land surface of our planet.* Most 

 of this immense area is as unknown to the inhabitants of the earth 

 as is the interior of one of Jupiter's satellites. With the apphances 

 of steam to aid us, with the lights of science to guide us, it would 

 be a reproach to the world to permit such a large portion of its sm-- 

 face any longer to remain unexplored. For the last 200 years the 

 Arctic Ocean has been a theatre for exploration ; but as for the ant- 

 arctic, no expedition has attempted to make any persistent explora- 

 tion, or even to winter there. 



* The area of tlie antarctic circle is 8,155,600 square miles. 



