Fune 3, 1886] 
NATURE 
107 
lying only as far south of the equator as York is north of 
it, South Georgia is covered, in the higher parts at least, 
with permanent snows and glaciers, and is altogether of 
a most wild and desolate aspect. Large masses of ice were 
continually breaking off from the perpendicular cliffs and 
falling into the sea with a noise like cannon. “ The inner 
parts of the country,” says Cook, “were not less savage 
and horrible. The wild rocks raised their lofty summits 
till they were lost in the clouds, and the valleys lay 
covered with everlasting snow. Not a tree was to be 
seen, nor a shrub even big enough to make a toothpick. 
The only vegetation we met with was a coarse strong- 
bladed grass growing in tufts, wild burnet, and a plant 
like moss, which sprung from the rocks.” 
Animal life, however, was more abundant. Seals were 
plentiful, and the penguins the largest ever seen by Cook; 
some which were taken on board weighed from twenty- 
nine tothirty-eight pounds. Eight kinds of “oceanic birds” 
are enumerated , and one, a yellow bird, was found to be 
delicious food. All the land birds observed were “a few 
small larks.” From Cook’s narrative it appears that Forster, 
the botanist, was one of the landing party, hence it might 
have been expected that few flowering plants would have 
escaped observation, especially as the visit was made in 
January, the midsummer of the southern hemisphere. 
Forster himself states (“Observations made during a 
Voyage round the World,” p. 16) that South Georgia is 
an isle of about eighty leagues in extent, consisting of 
high hills, none of which were free from snow in the 
middle of January, except a few rocks near the sea. And 
he adds that there was no soil except in a few crevices of 
the rocks. 
No further information respecting this island has 
been published, so far as I am aware, until since the 
return of a recent German Expedition, which made the 
island one of its stations for meteorological and other 
observations. When collecting the materials to illustrate 
the flora of the very much broken coldest southern zone 
of vegetation for the “ Botany of the Chadlenger Expedi- 
tion,’ I had to be content with Cook and Forster’s very 
meagre accounts of South Georgia ; but from the pub- 
lished northern limits of drift ice in different longitudes 
in the southern hemisphere, it was not expected that 
South Georgia possessed much more than the scanty 
flora they attributed to it, though Macquarie Island, in 
the same latitude, and nearly in the longitude of New. 
Zealand, was known to support a comparatively luxuriant 
vegetation. Dreary and barren as it is, however, South 
Georgia is not so bad as it has been painted. The 
officers of the German Expedition spent nearly a year on 
the island, and appear to have explored it thoroughly, 
botanically and otherwise. During this period the atmo- 
spheric pressure was subject to extraordinary fluctuations, 
the extremes exhibiting a difference of 64 millimetres, or 
a fraction over 24 inches, while the range of temperature 
during the same period was only 48°°6 Fahr., or in round 
numbers, from 8° to 57° Fahr.; thus showing the 
freezing-point to be nearly midway in the range. The 
actual mean temperature of the year was 35°06 Fahr. ; of 
June, the coldest month, 25°°6 Fahr.; and of February, 
the warmest month, 41°°6 Fahr. 
With regard to the flowering plants collected in the 
island by Dr. Will, one of the officers of the Expedition, 
we are indebted to Dr. Engler for an enumeration of them 
in his Fahrbiicher, vol. vii. p. 281. They are thirteen in 
number, and their general distribution is so extremely 
interesting that I may be pardoned for giving it in 
detail :— 
(1) Ranunculus biternatus, Sm. (Ranunculacez).— 
Fuegia, Falklands, Tristan d’Acunha (?) Marion, and 
Kerguelen Islands. 
(2) Colobanthus subulatus, @Urville (Caryophyllacez). 
—Fuegia, Campbell’s Island, New Zealand, and Alps of 
Victoria, Australia. 
(3) Colobanthus crassifolius, V Urville (Caryophyllacez), 
—Fuegia and Falklands. 
(4) Montia fontana, L. (Portulacez).—Fuegia, Marion, 
Kerguelen, Campbell’s [sland, and widely diffused. 
(5) Acena adscendens, Vahl. (Rosacez). — Fuegia, 
Marion, Crozets, Kerguelen, Macquarie Islands, and New 
Zealand. 
(6) Acena levigata, Ait. (Rosacez).—Fuegia. 
(7) Callitriche verna, L. var. (Halorageze).—Fuegia, 
Marion, Kerguelen, Heard Islands, New Zealand, and 
widely diffused. 
(8) Funcus nove-zealandi@, Hook. f. (Juncacez).—New 
Zealand. 
(9) Rostkovia magellanica, Hook. f. (Juncacez).— 
Andes, Fuegia, Falklands, and Campbell’s Islands. 
(10) Azra antarctica, Hook. f. (Graminez).—Fuegia, 
Falklands, South Shetlands, and Kerguelen Island. 
(11) Phleum alpinum, L. (Graminez).—Magellan’s 
Straits, and widely dispersed in the cold regions of the 
northern hemisphere. 
(12) Festuca erecta, D’Urville (Graminez).—Fuegia, 
Falklands, and Kerguelen. 
(13) Poa flabellata, Hook. f., syn. Dactylis cespitosa, 
Forst. (Graminez),—Fuegia and Falklands. 
From the collector’s remarks, appended by Engler to 
each species, it appears that some of the foregoing plants 
flourish luxuriantly in South Georgia, especially the 
species of Acena (the burnet of Cook’s narrative), and 
Aira antarctica and Poa flabellata. The Ranunculus 
was abundant by the side of a stream and elsewhere, 
and Colobanthus subulatus (doubtless the moss-like plant 
mentioned by Cook) formed large tufts on the south side 
of the hills. Nine out of the thirteen plants in South 
Georgia are also found in the eastern part of this 
southernmost zone of vegetation from Kerguelen to New 
Zealand, taking these islands together. One, fwscus 
nove-zealandi@, had not previously been found in what 
may be termed the American part of the zone; but, as 
Prof. Buchanan, to whom Dr. Engler submitted the 
South Georgian specimens, remarks, this is so nearly 
allied to the South American Funcus stipulatus that it 
may be cited as another instance of representative and 
closely-allied species in the American and Australian 
regions. 
Thus are we gradually obtaining a knowledge of the 
vegetation of the detached fragments of the Antarctic 
flora; yet several islands are still quite unknown bota- 
nically or only very imperfectly. Concerning Diego 
Alvarez, or Gough Island, situated about 4° south of the 
Tristan d’Acunha group, we know nothing except that 
the vegetation is said to be similar to that of Tristan 
d’Acunha, and to include Phylica nitida, the only arbor 
eous member of the latter flora. Then there is a group of 
islands, including Lindsay, Bouvet, and Thomson, in 
about the same latitude as South Georgia, but 35° east- 
ward, of which nothing is known botanically. 
W. BOTTING HEMSLEY 
NOTES 
Tue Visitation of Greenwich Observatory takes place on 
Saturday next. 
THE Ladies’ Soirée at the Royal Society takes place on the 
evening of Wednesday, the 9th inst. 
_ THE honour of C.M.G. has been conferred on Mr. Charles 
Meldrum, Director of the Royal Alfred Observatory, Mauritius. 
Tue explosion of the 43-ton gun has led to the appointment 
of a Committee of Inquiry, in which the name of Mr. Anderson 
is conspicuous by its absence, although surely no greater authority 
on the points at issue exists. A year ago, in his important lectures 
at the Society of Arts, he drew attention to the want of relation 
between the sections and pressures, and predicted disasters. 
