276 THE SEA. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 



THE ANTARCTIC REGIONS. 



Has the South Pole been Neglected? The Antarctic even more Inhospitable than the Arctic The Antarctic Summer- 

 Search for the Terra Australia Early Explorers Captain Cook's Discoveries Watering at Icebergs The Southern 

 Thule Smith's Report WeddelTs Voyage Dead Whale Mistaken for an Island D'Urville's Adelie Land Wilkes 

 Land Voyages of James Ross -High Land Discovered Deep Beds of Guano -Antarctic Volcanoes Mounts Erebus 

 and Terror Victoria Land. 



ONE might well inquire, without a previous knowledge of the reasons, why the South Pole 

 has not received the attention which has been lavished on the North. The fact is that 

 while the Arctic regions do not present many attractions for travel, and certainly even less for 

 residence or settlement, the Antarctic regions are still more unpromising in both particulars. 

 The extreme intensity of Antarctic cold is found to commence at a much higher latitude than 

 in the northern hemisphere. In the Arctic seas large icebergs are rarely found till the 70th 

 parallel of latitude is reached, while stationary fields are met in a still higher latitude. In the 

 South Pacific both occur at from 50 to 60 of southern latitude. The mountains of Cape 

 Horn, of Terra del Puego, and outlying islands, are covered with perpetual snow quite to their 

 sea-coasts. " This contrast," say Professor Tomlinson, in one of the few general works we 

 possess on the subject,* <: has been ascribed to the shorter stay which the sun makes in the 

 southern hemisphere than in the northern. But this difference, amounting to scarcely eight 

 days, has been proved to be exactly compensated by the greater nearness of the earth to the 

 sun during the southern than during the northern summer. Another cause must therefore 

 be sought, and as it is a fact that water becomes less heated by the same amount of sunshine 

 than any solid substance, this cause will be found in the vast extent of the Antarctic seas, 

 the total absence of any great surface of land, and the form of the continents which terminate 

 towards the south almost in points, thus opening a free and unencumbered field to the 

 currents from the Polar seas, and allowing them to push forward the icy masses in every 

 direction from the south pole towards the southern and temperate zone." 



The word Antarctic explains itself as that part of the earth opposite to the Arctic. f 

 Winter in the one corresponds to summer in the other, and vice versa. When the Arctic 

 circle is delighting in one long summer day, the Antarctic regions are oppressed by the 

 darkest gloom. When we in England are, or should be, enjoying the bright days of 

 midsummer, the southern Polar regions are pitchy dark, while at our Christmas-tide that 

 part of the earth is bathed in floods of sunshine. 



It has been seen that our knowledge of the North Polar seas has been largely the result 

 of explorations in search of a north-western or north-eastern passage or strait to the Pacific. 

 The exploration of the Antarctic regions is mainly due to quests after a continent in 

 the southern seas the Terra Anstralis incognita of many old geographers. The belief 

 in the existence of such a land can be traced back as far as 1576, when Juan Fernandez 

 is reported to have sailed southward from Chile, and to have arrived after a month's 

 voyage at a tierra ferme, a charming fertile land inhabited by friendly and 'almost civilised 



* " Summer in the Antarctic Regions." 



f The word Arctic is derived from the Greek, and signifies of, or belonging to the bear. 



