466 PHYSICAL GEOGEAPIIY OF THE 8EA, AND ITS METEOROLOGY. 



winds transports immense volumes of heat from the more tem- 

 perate 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 vapour finds its 

 way back again. Being fresh water, and falling 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 sizo 

 and thickness that are almost impossible to be formed out of sea 

 water imless it be dashed up as spray. Moreover, on the aixjtic 

 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 con- 

 tinental ; and for the very reason that the English 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. Mild climate in 63° S. — As tending to confirm these views 

 touching the mildness of unknown antarctic climates, the state- 

 ment 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, during which time it 

 went no lower than — 5° Fahr.* 



876. Antarctic ice-drift. — The low barometer and the implied 

 heavy precipitation in the antarctic regions are not the only wit- 

 nesses that may be called up in favour 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 journey to the milder climates of the north, are encoun- 

 tered 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 



* Maury's Sailing DIrcctioas. 



