694 — The American Naturalist. [August, 
and other authorities believe that in those days he wasskirting a part of 
the coast of the great Antarctic continent, and while he was adding to 
our knowledge of the coast lines around the South Pole, he also dis- 
covered some volcanoes in a highly active state, showing that Plutonic 
energy in that part of the world has not yet died out, and that its 
piles’ there is more widely distributed than we had any reason to 
suppos 
; The i ice conditions greatly favored Capt. Larsen, for he found a com- 
paratively open sea, and was able to advance about one hundred miles 
south of the Antarctic Circle. Only the year before the whalers had 
found the sea packed with ice almost to the extreme northern part of 
Graham’s Land. As they looked south they saw a chain of bergs 
towering high above their ships, which effectually barred their progress 
in that direction. After Ross, in his sailing ships Erebus and Terror, 
had discovered Victoria Land and skirted its coast for hundreds of 
miles, he spent almost the entire season of 1842-43 near the north end 
of Graham’s Land trying in vain to push his way through the ice-en- 
cumbered sea and the great chain of bergs. He was not able, however, 
to advance toward the south until he went far east, out of sight of 
Graham's Land, whose mystery he had hoped to solve. Larsen had a 
very different experience in November and December last. The 
weather was fine and warm, and there was plenty of sunshine and little 
fog. The air and sea teemed with animal life, for many birds, whales 
and seals were seen, and, best of all, the white, east coast of Graham’s 
Land, rising here and there into lofty peaks, stood out clearly in view. 
He followed it straight to the south, until, at its furthest point, he saw 
it rising to still loftier heights and stretching away to the southeast and 
east. 
From Capt. Larsen's log, and from the observations of the whalers 
at the north end of Graham's Land, in the previous season, we are able 
to get some idea of this ferra incognita. According to his log, Capt. 
Larsen steamed along this east coast for 230 miles, the coast line 
stretching away a little east of south, a high, rocky shore, most of it a 
few miles west of 60? west longitude from Greenwich. Right at the 
Antaretie Circle is a very high peak, most of which is bare of snow. 
The shore front is skirted with an ice barrier that runs about five miles 
out to sea, and is from twenty-five to sixty feet high. The land is 
covered with an ice cap and glaciers flow down the valleys, but in the 
narrow, northern part of the land they are, of course, small, and do not 
produce icebergs over sixty to seventy feet in height. In 1892-93 the 
whalers saw in the neighboring waters bergs that were 200 feet or more 
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