70 REPORT 1861. 



the climate of the Antarctic is marine, for those regions are smrounded by water. 

 No explorer has spent a winter there to prove it, but all the known facts and cir- 

 cumstances seem to confirm it. An example or two will make it plain that it imtst 

 he so. Labrador is the type of a continental climate ; Ireland of a marine in the 

 same latitude. As the simimer of Ii-eland is cooler than that of Labrador, so may 

 the Antarctic summer climate be cooler than the ^Yrctic. 



The average mid-winter temperatm-e of Iceland is but 1.3° colder than its average 

 July temperatm'e ; whereas the difierence between the mean winter and siunmer 

 temperature of Fort Simpson is 70°. But this Fort, gi-eat as is thLs contrast of 

 climate, is situated within the sweep of the S.W. -nands fi'om the N. Pacific, and 

 therefore its climate is only semi-continental. Nevertheless its smnmer tempera- 

 ture is 15° higher than that of Iceland. Now these two places are in about the 

 same latitude north, but with this sti-iking difference — one is suiToimded by water 

 as the Antarctic is, the other by land, as the Arctic. 



The islands of the sea, and the interior of continents throughout the world in 

 high latitudes, abound in such climatic contrasts. 



The difference between the mean winter and summer temperatiu^e of the marine 

 climates of the south is probably, and for obvious reasons, not so gi-eat as it is in 

 corresponding latitudes north. The lowest point reached by a self-registering tlier- 

 mometer, not for a season or a month, but in the coldest day dm-iug a period of 

 several years at the South Shetland Islands, in 63° S., was 5° Fahr. At Yakoutsk, 

 on the other hand, which in Asia is about as far from the North as the South Shet- 

 lands are fi'om the South Pole, and in a tndy continental climate, the thermometer 

 goes down in winter to 70° Fahr.*, while for July its mean temperatm-e is 60°t. 

 Thus, though 10° of lat. further to the north, it receives the same amount of heat 

 in simimer that is felt at Dublin f ; one place being near to and siuroimded by sea, 

 the other far removed from open water and the influences of the copious discharge 

 of latent heat which attends the hea\'y condensation of aqueous vapour. 



In winter, however, and owing to the same influences, the thermometer at 

 Yakoutsk, annually for about two weeks, sinks fidl 100° below the mean winter 

 temperatm-e in Iceland. The difference between continental and marine climates 

 becomes more marked, not only as we approach the Pole, but as the places ai'o more 

 or less contiguous to the open sea, and exposed to west winds from the ocean or 

 dry winds from the land. Indeed, the summers of Yakoutsk are warm enough to 

 grow vegetables, ripen frmts, and aflbrd gi-ass for cattle. 



The climates of all the lands whicli have been visited in liigh southern latitudes 

 are eminently marine. In marine climates the simimer is cool, the winters warm ; 

 take for types the British Isles and Canada. There is not, during the Antarctic 

 summer, wannth enough in the solar ray to call into play any vegetable forces be- 

 j'Ond the feeble energies of mosses and lichens. There, as in Iceland and aU other 

 marine places, there is comparatively but little difference between the sunmier and 

 winter cUmates. The mean difference between the average winter and average 

 summer temperature in the Antarctic, as indicated by the South Shetland obseiwa- 

 tions, is less than the change often experienced with us here between the tempera- 

 tm'e of the evening and the morning of the same day. 



Cool suiTuners, wann winters, and evenness of tcmperatm-e the year roimd being 

 the characteristics of marine climates, we should look for great imiformity in those 

 of high southern latitudes. It is their extraordinarily cool summers, as reported by 

 navigators, which have created the impression in nautical cu'cles that the cold of 

 the Antarctic winter is far more exti-eme than that of the Ai-ctic. This was the im- 

 pression made upon the mind of Cook, the bravest of the brave. He was a close 

 observer, and there is no authority which to this day has more weight in seafixring 

 circles, and none which requires more stubborn facts to set aside. 



On the 14th of January, eighty odd yeai-s ago, that accomplished navigator dis- 

 covered (it being then midsimimer of the southern hemisphere) an island in lat. 54° 

 and 55° S., which corresponds in lat. with L-eland. On the 17th he landed to 

 take possession of it. He caUed it Georgia, but did not think " any one would ever 

 be benefited by this discovery," for its "valleys lay covered with everlasting snow," 



* Erman. t Dove. The mean temperature for January is 40'. 



I Colonel Sir Henry James, Ordnance Survey. 



