372 THE PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF THE SEA. 



with regard to the distribution of land and water over the surface 

 of the earth, and which, as far as it goes, seems to favor the hy- 

 pothesis of much land about the south pole ; and that circum- 

 stance is this : It seems to be a physical necessity that land should 

 not be antipodal to land. Except a small portion of South Amer- 

 ica and Asia, land is always opposite to water. 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 favor of land in 

 the opposite zone. Finally, geographers are agreed that, irre- 

 spective of the particularized facts and phenomena which we have 

 been considering, the jDrobabilities are in favor of an antarctic 

 continent rather than of an antarctic ocean. 



" 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 

 suf&cient evidences to infer the existence of such with certainty. 

 This southern or antarctic continent advances 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 ex- 

 amine the coasts very closely. -^ "^ ^ "^ ^ ^ 



" The principal discoveries of these coasts are (Wilkes), Dumont 

 d'Urville, and Koss (the younger), of whom the latter in 18^1:2 fol- 

 lowed a coast over 100 miles between 72° and 79° south latititude, 

 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."* 



Observatory, Washington, April, 1859. 



* Text-book of Oceanography for the Use of the Imperial Naval Academy, by 

 Dr. August Jilek, Vienna, 1857. 



