XI 
CLIMATE OF ANTARCTIC ISLANDS 
263 
that the limit of their transportal extends to 5 3-^ 0 from the 
northern pole ; but in Europe to not more than 40 0 of latitude, 
measured from the same point. On the other hand, in the 
intertropical parts of America, Asia, and Africa, they have 
never been observed ; nor at the Cape of Good Hope, nor in 
Australia. 1 
On the Climate and Productions of the Antarctic Islands .-— 
Considering the rankness of the vegetation in Tierra del Fuego, 
and on the coast northward of it, the condition of the islands 
south and south-west of America is truly surprising. Sandwich 
Land, in the latitude of the north part of Scotland, was found 
by Cook, during the hottest month of the year, “ covered many 
fathoms thick with everlasting snow ; ” and there seems to be 
scarcely any vegetation. Georgia, an island 96 miles long 
and 10 broad, in the latitude of Yorkshire, “in the very height 
of summer, is in a manner wholly covered with frozen snow.” 
It can boast only of moss, some tufts of grass, and wild burnet ; 
it has only one land-bird (Anthus correndera), yet Iceland, 
which is io° nearer the pole, has, according to Mackenzie, 
fifteen land-birds. The South Shetland Islands, in the same 
latitude as the southern half of Norway, possess only some 
lichens, moss, and a little grass ; and Lieut. Kendall 2 found 
the bay, in which he was at anchor, beginning to freeze at a 
period corresponding with our 8th of September. The soil 
here consists of ice and volcanic ashes interstratified ; and at 
a little depth beneath the surface it must remain perpetually 
congealed, for Lieut. Kendall found the body of a foreign 
sailor which had long been buried, with the flesh and all the 
features perfectly preserved. It is a singular fact that on the 
two great continents in the northern hemisphere (but not in 
the broken land of Europe between them) we have the zone 
of perpetually frozen under-soil in a low latitude—namely, in 
56° in North America at the depth of three feet, 3 and in 62° 
1 I have given details (the first, I believe, published) on this subject in the first 
edition, and in the Appendix to it. I have there shown that the apparent exceptions 
to the absence of erratic boulders in certain hot countries are due to erroneous 
observations ; several statements there given I have since found confirmed by various 
authors. 
2 Geographical Journal , 1830, pp. 65, 66. 
3 Richardson’s Append, to Bacls Exped. and Humboldt’s Fragm. Asiat. tom. 
ii. p. 386. 
