224. THE ANTARCTIC. 



The substances raised from the sea bottom were mostly 

 blue mud, of which we now know that it is invariably of 

 continental origin ; also to a preponderating extent rock- 

 masses, exhibiting distinct traces of glacial action ; these 

 were granite, quartz-diorite, diorite-siate (scale-stone), 

 amphibolite, mica-slate, granulous-quarzite, sandstone, 

 small fragments of compact limestone and of decomposed 

 clay-slate, in a word, only such rocks as are produced 

 exclusively by continents or their fragments. Eruptive 

 rocks, or to speak more accurately, eruptive rocks of late 

 origin, have been nowhere met with in hiorh latitudes, but 

 occurred in considerable quantities farther north in the 

 neighbourhood of the Heard Isles, which are volcanic. 

 Every one will agree that Murray is right in the inference 

 he draws from these evidences — that there must be land 

 near So E. ; for these rock-fragments necessarily are 

 derived from land, and can have reached their subsequent 

 resting place only by being transported by ice. How far 

 off this land may be from the positions reached, whether 

 i 20 or 250 miles, or more or less, is, according to Murray, 

 a matter of secondary importance ; the main thing being 

 the certainty of its existence, which is proved, not only 

 by the specimens brought up from the bottom of the sea, 

 but is also made probable by the great number of quite 

 new icebergs which the Challenger encountered in the 

 higher latitudes between Wilkes Land and Enderby Land. 

 The first undisputed sight of land in the district of 

 Enderby Land is called Kemp Land — after Kemp, its 

 discoverer. He saw in latitude 66° 25' S. and 59° E. 

 a perfectly inaccessible coast — and that is the sum total of 

 our knowledge of his discovery. The chart of the British 

 Admiralty, No. 1,240, lays down his whole course, and thus 

 gives the most exact account of this voyage. According 

 to it, this probably conjectural coast line is situated in 

 latitude 66° 35' S. ; it extends from 6o° to 58° 30' E., and 

 is thus about forty miles long. 



