250 PRESERVATION IN ICE. i[chap. xi. 



Kendall found the body of a foreign sailor which had long 

 been buried, with the flesh and all the features perfectly 

 preserved. It is a singular fact, that on the two great 

 continents in the northern hemisphere (but not in the broken 

 land of Europe between them), we have the zone of perpetu- 

 ally frozen under-soil in a low latitude — namely, in 56° in 

 North America at the depth of three feet,* and in 62° in 

 Siberia at the depth of twelve to fifteen feet — as the result 

 of a directly opposite condition of things, to those of the 

 southern hemisphere. On the northern continents, the 

 winter is rendered excessively cold by the radiation from a 

 large area of land into a clear sky, nor is it moderated by 

 the warmth-bringing currents of the sea ; the short summer, 

 on the other hand, is hot. In the Southern Ocean the winter 

 is not so excessively cold, but the summer is far less hot, 

 for the clouded sky seldom allows the sun to warm the 

 ocean, itself a bad absorbent of heat ; and hence the mean 

 temperature of the year, which regulates the zone of 

 perpetually congealed under-soil, is low. It is evident that 

 a rank vegetation, which does not so much require heat as 

 it does protection from intense cold, would approach much 

 nearer to this zone of perpetual congelation under the 

 equable climate of the southern hemisphere, than under the 

 extreme climate of the northern continents. 



The case of the sailor's body perfectly preserved in the 

 icy soil of the South Shetland Islands (lat. 62° to 63° S.) in 

 a rather lower latitude than that (lat. 64° N.) under which 

 Pallas found the frozen rhinoceros in Siberia, is very 

 interesting. Although it is a fallacy, as I have endeavoured 

 to show in a former chapter, to suppose that the larger 

 quadrupeds require a luxuriant vegetation for their support, 

 nevertheless it is important to find in the South Shetland 

 Islands, a frozen under-soil within 360 miles of the forest- 

 clad islands near Cape Horn, where, as far as the hulk of 

 vegetation is concerned, any number of great quadrupeds 

 might be supported. *The perfect preservation of the 

 carcasses of the Siberian elephants and rhinoceroses is 

 certainly one of the most wonderful facts in geology ; but 

 independejatly of the imagined difiiculty of supplying them 

 with food from the adjoining countries, the whole case is 

 not, I think, so perplexing as it has generally been con- 

 sidered. The plains of Siberia, like those of the Pampas, 



* Richardson's append, to " Back's Expcd.," and Humboldt's " Fragm. 

 Asiat,," torn, ii., p. 386. 



