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, 1 and does not thaw in spring so soon as the surface 
1 Messrs. Dease and Simpson, in Geograph. Journ. vol. viii. pp. 218 and 220. 
