THE WINDS OF THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE. 451 



the Capo of Good Hope to Melbourne, and from Melbourne to 

 Cape Horn, scarcely ever venture, except while passing Cape 

 Horn, to go on the polar side of 55° S. The fear of icebergs 

 deters them. These may be seen there drifting up towards the 

 equator in large numbers and large masses all the year round. 

 I have encountered them myself as high up as the parallel of 

 37° — 8° S. The belt of ocean that encircles this globe on the 

 polar side of 55° S. is never free from icebergs. They are found 

 in all parts of it the year round. Many of them are miles in 

 extent and hundreds of feet thick. The area on the polar side 

 of the 55th parallel of south latitude comprehends a space of 

 17,784,600 square miles. The nursery for the bergs, to fill such 

 a field, must be an immense one ; such a nursery cannot be on 

 the sea, for icebergs require to be fastened firmly to the shore 

 until they attain full size. They therefore, in their mute way, 

 are loud with evidence in favour of antartic shore lines of great 

 extent, of deep bays where they may be formed, and of lofty 

 cliffs whence they may be launched. 



840. A physical law concerning the distribution of land and 

 water. — There is another physical circumstance which obtains 

 generally with regard to the distribution of land and water over 

 the surface of the earth, and which, as far as it goes, seems to 

 favour the hypothesis of much land about the 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 por- 

 tion 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 belief 

 is, that on the polar side of 70° north we have mostly water, not 

 land. This law of distribution, so far as it applies, is in favour 

 of land in the opposite zone. Finally, geographers are agreed 

 that, irrespective of the particularized facts and phenomena 

 which we have been considering, the probabilities are in favour 

 of an antarctic continent rather than of an antarctic ocean. 



841. Br. Jilch. — " There is now no doubt," says Dr. Jilek, in 

 his Lehrbuch der Oceanographie, "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 portions with which we have become acquainted, and the 

 investigations made, furnish sufficient evidences to infer the 

 existence of such with certainty. This southern or antarctic 



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