THE ARCTIC FLORA. 555 



and which extends nearer the South Pole than any other yet known. 

 Its shores are rendered imposing by a line of lofty and snow-crowned 

 mountains, some of which are volcanic. To two of the more majestic 

 of these the English voyager gave the names of his two ships Mount 

 Erebus and Mount Terror. The former is 12,400 feet in height.* 



Sir James Ross traced the continents of this desolate icy coast 

 for seven hundred miles, until his progress was arrested by a solid 

 impenetrable barrier of lofty ice. He reached, however, on another 

 meridian, the latitude of 78 4' south, the nearest approach yet made 

 to the Antarctic Pole. 



CHAPTER II. 



ANIMAL LIFE AND VEGETABLE LIFE IN THE POLAR DESERTS. 



THE mantle which Flora has spread over the naked body of this 

 earth is, says Humboldt, unequally woven. Thickest in those places 

 where the sun soars to a great altitude in a cloudless sky, it is of 

 thinner texture towards the poles, where Nature seems benumbed 

 and torpid, where the precipitate return of frost leaves no time for 

 the buds to unfold, and surprises the fruits before they have attained 

 maturity. 



The number of plants capable of withstanding the prolonged and 

 terrible Arctic winters, and of contenting themselves with the scanty 

 heat and light which the pale sun of those regions pours upon them 

 during his brief stay above the horizon, is, in effect, very limited. 

 We have seen, in the preceding chapter, how restricted is the flora 

 of that part of the American polar lands which has received the 

 somewhat ambitious appellation of the " Wooded Region." This flora, 

 so poor and stunted, is nevertheless the flora of a comparatively 

 fortunate zone. We find it, with some variations, to the north of 

 * Sir James C. Ross " Voyages of Discovery ancl Research " (London, 1847). 



