THE INSURGENCE OF LIFE 143 



funereal black sand when the ' foot-ice ' was gone. Inshore 

 there was black lava, showing no vegetation higher than 

 mosses, and very little of them. Even the lichenous tripe 

 de roche, familiar in books of Arctic exploration for its 

 role in staving off starvation, was scarcely so abundant 

 as to fulfil the same life-saving role in the Antarctic. 

 Ice covered the sea ; ice fifteen feet of it covered the 

 little lakes. Could any faunistic outlook have been more 

 unprepossessing ? 



But the reality was very different from the appearance. 

 Mr. James Murray and the other workers under his guid- 

 ance wasted no time in bemoaning the absence of faunistic 

 amenities. They made holes in the ice, which the Weddell 

 seals helped to keep open, and set traps which yielded 

 molluscs, crustaceans, and worms. They managed to haul 

 a dredge from one hole to another, and got sponges, sea- 

 anemones, alcyonarians, starfishes, crustaceans, and 

 molluscs. They cut down through fifteen feet of ice in the 

 small inland lakes, and reached a floor of ' foliaceous vege- 

 tation ', and a rich micro-fauna and micro-flora. There 

 were abundant Rotifers, especially of two new viviparous 

 species, which subsequent experiment showed to be able 

 to withstand all sorts of changes of temperature. There 

 were ' water-bears,' or Tardigrades, and water-mites, and 

 two species of ' water-fleas ', besides thread- worms, In- 

 fusorians, and two kinds of Rhizopods. Here then in the 

 collecting at Cape Royds we get another illustration of the 

 insurgence of life. We see life persistent and intrusive 

 spreading everywhere, insinuating itself, adapting itself ; 

 resisting everything, defying everything, surviving every- 

 thing. 



Desert -Plants. A well-known adaptation to difficult 



