264 CLIMATE AND PRODUCTIONS OF chap. 



in Siberia at the depth of twelve to fifteen feet — as the result 

 of a directly opposite condition of things to those of the 

 southern hemisphere. On the northern continents, the winter 

 is rendered excessively cold by the radiation from a large area 

 of land into a clear sky, nor is it moderated by the warmth- 

 bringing currents of the sea ; the short summer, on the other 

 hand, is hot In the Southern Ocean the winter is not so 

 excessively cold, but the summer is far less hot, for the clouded 

 sky seldom allows the sun to warm the ocean, itself a bad 

 absorbent of heat ; and hence the mean temperature of the 

 year, which regulates the zone of perpetually congealed under- 

 soil, is low. It is evident that a rank vegetation, which does not 

 so much require heat as it does protection from intense cold, 

 would approach much nearer to this zone of perpetual con- 

 gelation under the equable climate of the southern hemisphere, 

 than under the extreme climate of the northern continents. 



The case of the sailor's body perfectly preserved in the 

 icy soil of the South Shetland Islands (lat. 62° to 63° S.), 

 in a rather lower latitude than that (lat 64° N.), under which 

 Pallas found the frozen rhinoceros in Siberia, is very interesting. 

 Although it is a fallacy, as I have endeavoured to show in a 

 former chapter, to suppose that the larger quadrupeds require 

 a luxuriant vegetation for their support, nevertheless it is 

 important to find in the South Shetland Islands a frozen 

 under-soil within 360 miles of the forest -clad islands near 

 Cape Horn, where, as far as the bulk of vegetation is concerned, 

 any number of great quadrupeds might be supported. The 

 perfect preservation of the carcasses of the Siberian elephants 

 and rhinoceroses is certainly one of the most wonderful facts 

 in geology ; but independently of the imagined difficulty of 

 supplying them with food from the adjoining countries, the 

 whole case is not, I think, so perplexing as it has generally 

 been considered. The plains of Siberia, like those of the 

 Pampas, appear to have been formed under the sea, into which 

 rivers brought down the bodies of many animals ; of the 

 greater number of these only the skeletons have been preserved, 

 but of others the perfect carcass. Now it is known, that in 

 the shallow sea on the arctic coast of America the bottom 

 freezes,^ and does not thaw in spring so soon as the surface 



I Messrs. Dease and Simpson, in Geograph. Journ. vol. viii. pp. 2l8 and 220. 



