ENDERBY LAND. 225 



We are somewhat better informed about Enderby 

 Land itself, although it was seen nowhere from a less 

 distance than twenty-five to forty miles ; hence it comes 

 that the map we possess is so little reliable and varies 

 in many points from Biscoe's notes. According to this 

 latter the eastern extremity of the land seen would be 

 transferred to 6i° E., and scarcely farther north than 

 latitude 66° 25' S ; at least Biscoe's map does not show any 

 position that is more advanced, and the one in question 

 is occupied by a considerable elevation. Farther west is 

 situated, according to Biscoe's observations, a distinctly 

 projecting headland called Cape Anne. From here the 

 land stretches more or less distinctly visible from a great 

 distance as far as longitude 43° 54/ E., where Biscoe came 

 near and himself distinctly saw a perpendicular wall of ice 

 100 to 1 10 feet high, a most reliable indication of land. 

 Only a little to the west of it Cook had seen an uniform 

 and level mass of ice extending along the horizon, which, 

 according to his imperfect measurement, he estimated to 

 be 15 to 20 feet high. All the experience so far gained 

 in the Antarctic regions is against the assumption that it 

 was pack-ice or field-ice, for such a thickness of it has 

 nowhere been seen in the frozen seas of the south, and least 

 of all in the open storm-lashed waters at such comparatively 

 low latitudes ; it seems safe then to assume that both the ice 

 seen by Cook and that west of Alexander Land was a 

 real ice wall, whose distance and height he may possibly 

 have under-estimated. 



This is the extreme point from which the existence of 

 land may be assumed with any degree of certainty, but it 

 is conjectured that it extends thence at ever higher lati- 

 tudes as far as the zero-meridian. Thus Biscoe believed 

 that he saw land repeatedly about latitude 69° S., and 

 he was confirmed in this belief by observing numerous 

 animals, of whom we know from experience that they keep 



at no great distance from the land ; this seems to have 



15 



