120 FIRST FORMS OF VEGETATION. 
ciata, having been observed by Lieutenant 
Kendal on Deception Island, the Ultima Thule 
of the Antarctic regions. ‘There was nothing,’ 
he says, in his interesting account of his visit to 
that island, ‘in the shape of vegetation except a 
small kind of lichen, whose efforts seemed almost 
ineffectual to maintain its existence among the 
scanty soil afforded by the penguin’s dung.’ Dr. 
Hooker also mentions that on this island he 
found a few species of the beautiful pale green 
Usnea melaxantha, \ooking like a miniature 
shrubbery on the barren rocks ; on another island, 
a few filmy specks of Lecanora and Lecidea, and 
five peculiar mosses; but that on Franklin 
Island, and the islands nearer the Southern Pole, 
he could not perceive the smallest trace of vegeta- 
tion, not even a solitary lichen or piece of sea- 
weed clinging to the rocks. Surrounded by huge 
precipices of black lava, which seemed to fringe 
them with mourning, and consisting entirely of 
jagged rocks, formed of a kind of iron sponge 
whose every pore has been filled with fire, covered 
only with a little red soil, scorched and sterile, or 
glittering snow-white patches of fragile shells and 
coral, ground to dust by the fury of the waves,— 
these remote islands exhibited an aspect so savage 
and repulsive, so utterly lonely and lifeless, as to 
impress with horror the stoutest heart. 
