54 THE OCEAX WORLD. 



of rock were torn from the scarped and denuded cliffs. These rocks 

 are composed of quartzite and gneiss. The southern continent, there- 

 fore, belongs to the primitive formation, while the northern region 

 belongs in great part to the transition, or coal formation. According 

 to the map of Adelia's Land, traced by D'Urville over an extent of 

 thirty leagues of country, the region is one of death and desolation, 

 without any trace of vegetation. 



A little more to the north, the French navigator had a vague vision 

 on the white lines of the horizon of another land, which he named 

 Cote Clarie, or Coast Clear, the existence of which was soon confirmed 

 by the American expedition under Commodore Wilkes. This officer 

 has explored the southern land on a larger scale than any other 

 navigator, but he suffered himself to be led into error by the dense 

 fogs of the region, and has laid down coast lines on his map where 

 Sir James Eoss subsequently found only open sea an error which 

 has very unjustly thrown discredit on the whole expedition. 



The English expedition entered this region on Christmas Day, 

 1840, which was passed by Eoss in a strong gale, with constant snow 

 or rain. Soon after, the first icebergs were seen, having flat tabular 

 summits, in some instances two miles in circumference, bounded on 

 all sides by perpendicular cliffs. On New Year's Day, 1841, the 

 ships crossed the Antarctic Circle, and reached the edge of the pack 

 ice, which they entered, after skirting it for several days. On the 

 5th, the pack was passed through, amid blinding snow and thick fog, 

 which on clearing away revealed an open sea, and on the llth of 

 January land was seen directly ahead of the ships. A coast line rose 

 in lofty snow-covered peaks at a great distance. On a nearer view, 

 this coast is thus described : ' It was a beautifully clear evening, and 

 two magnificent ranges of mountains rose to elevations varying from 

 seven thousand to ten thousand feet above the level of the sea. The 

 glaciers which filled their intervening valleys, and which descended 

 from near the mountain summits, projected in many places several 

 miles into the sea, and terminated in lofty perpendicular cliffs. In a 

 few places the rocks broke through their icy covering, by which alone 

 we could be assured that lava formed the nucleus of this, to all 

 appearance, enormous iceberg. This antarctic land was named 

 Victoria Land, in honour of the Queen. It was coasted up to 

 latitude seventy-eight degrees south, and near to this a magnificent 



