Comparative view of the Antarctic and Arctic Regions-Inferiority of Climate of the former -Its Causes-The New Shetland Islands-South Georgia-The Peruvian Stream-Sea-birds-The Giant Petrel-The Albatross-The Penguin -The Austral Whale The Hunchback-The Fin-Back-The GrampusBattle with a Whale-The Sea-Elephant-The Southern Sea-Bear-The SeaLeopard-Antarctic Fishes.

THE

HE Antarctic regions are far more desolate and barren than the Arctic. Here we have no energetic hunters, like the Esquimaux, chasing the seal or the walrus; no herdsmen following, like the Samoyedes or the Lapps, their reindeer to the brink of the icy ocean; but all is one dreary, uninhabitable waste. While within the Arctic Circle the musk-ox enjoys an abundance of food, and the lemming is still found thriving on the bleakest islands, not a single land quadruped exists beyond 56° of southern latitude.

Summer flowers gladden the sight of the Arctic navigator in the most northern lands yet reached; but no plant of any description-not even a moss or a lichen-has been observed beyond Cockburn Island in 64° 12' S. lat.; and while even in Spitzbergen vegetation ascends the mountain slopes to a

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height of 3,000 feet the snow line descends to the water's edge in every land within or near the Antarctic Circle.

An open sea, extending towards the northern pole as far as the eye can reach, points out the path to future discovery; but the Antarctic navigators, with one single exception, have invariably seen their progress arrested by barriers of ice, and none have ever penetrated beyond the comparatively low latitude of 78° 10'.

Even in Spitzbergen and East Greenland, Scoresby sometimes found the heat of summer very great; but the annals of Antarctic navigation invariably speak of a frigid temperature. In 1773, when Captain Phipps visited Spitzbergen, the thermometer once rose to +58°; and on July 15, 1820, when the 'Hecla' left her winter-quarters in Melville Island, (74° 47′ N.), she enjoyed a warmth of +56°. But during the summer months spent by Sir James Ross in the Antarctic Polar area, the temperature of the air never once exceeded +41° 5'. In Northumberland Sound (76° 42′ N.), probably the coldest spot hitherto visited in the north, the mean of the three summer months was found to be +30° 8', while within the Antarctic Circle it only amounted to +27° 3'.

The reader may possibly wonder why the climate of the southern polar regions is so much more severe than that of the high northern latitudes; or why coasts and valleys, at equal distances from the equator, should in one case be found green with vegetation, and in another mere wastes of snow and ice; but the predominance of land in the north, and of sea in the south, fully answers the question. Within the Arctic Circle we see vast continental masses projecting far to the north, so as to form an almost continuous belt round the icy sea; while in the southern hemisphere, the continents taper down in a vast extent of open ocean. In the north, the plains of Siberia and of the Hudson's Bay territories, warmed by the sunbeams of summer, become at that season centres of radiating heat, so that in many parts the growth of forests, or even the culture of the cereals, advances as high as 70° of latitude; while the Antarctic lands are of a comparatively small extent, and isolated in the midst of frigid waters, whose temperature scarcely varies from +29° 2′ even in the height of summer. Mostly situated

within the Antarctic Circle, and constantly chilled by cold sea-winds, they act at every season as refrigerators of the atmosphere.

In the north, the formation of icebergs is confined to a few mountainous countries, such as the west coast of Greenland or Spitzbergen; but the Antarctic coast-lands generally tower to a considerable height above the level of the sea, and the vast fragments, which are constantly detaching themselves from their glaciers, keep up the low temperature of the seas.

In the north, the cold currents of the Polar Ocean, with their drift-ice and bergs, have but the two wide gates of the Greenland Sea and Davis' Strait through which they can emerge to the south, so that their influence is confined within comparatively narrow limits, while the gelid streams of the Antarctic seas branch out freely on all sides, and convey their floating ice-masses far and wide within the temperate seas. It is only to the west of Newfoundland that single icebergs have ever been known to descend as low as 39° of latitude; but in the southern hemisphere they have been met with in the vicinity of the Cape of Good Hope (35° S. lat.), near Tristan d'Acunha, opposite to the mouth of the Rio de la Plata, and within a hundred leagues of Tasmania. In the north, finally, we find the gulf stream conveying warmth even to the shores of Spitzbergen and Novaya Zemlya; while in the opposite regions of the globe, no traces of warm currents have been observed beyond 55° of latitude.

Thus the predominance of vast tracts of flat land in the boreal hemisphere, and of an immense expanse of ocean in the Antarctic regions, sufficiently accounts for the æstival warmth of the former, and the comparatively low summer temperature of the latter.

It is unnecessary to describe in detail each of the desolate lands which modern navigators have discovered among the Antarctic ice-fields, but it may not be uninteresting to compare one or two of these dreary wastes with the lands of the north, situated in analogous latitudes.

The New Shetland Islands, situated between 61° and 63° of southern latitude, were originally discovered by Dirck Gheritz-a Dutch navigator-who, in attempting to round

Cape Horn, was carried by tempestuous weather within sight of their mountainous coasts. Long forgotten, they were re-discovered in 1819 by Mr. Smith, a master in the royal navy-whom a storm had likewise carried thither-and in the following year more accurately examined by Edward Bransfield, whose name survives in the strait which separates them from D'Urville's Louis Philippe Land.

In 1829, the Chanticleer,' Captain Forster, was sent to New Shetland for the purpose of making magnetic and other physical observations, and remained for several months at Deception Island, which was selected as a station from its affording the best harbour in South Shetland.

Though these islands are situated at about the same distance from the pole as the Faroe Islands which boast of numerous flocks of sheep, and where the sea never freezes, yet, when the 'Chanticleer' approached Deception Island, on January 5 (a month corresponding to our July), so many icebergs were scattered about, that Forster counted at one time no fewer than eighty-one. A gale having arisen, accompanied by a thick fog, great care was needed to avoid running foul of these floating cliffs. After entering the harbour, -a work of no slight difficulty, from the violence of the wind -the fogs were so frequent that, for the first ten days, neither sun nor stars were seen; and it was withal so raw and cold, that Lieutenant Kendal, to whom we owe a short narrative of the expedition, did not recollect having suffered more at any time in the Arctic regions, even at the lowest range of the thermometer. In this desolate land, frozen water becomes an integral portion of the soil; for this volcanic island is composed chiefly of alternate layers of ashes and ice, as if the snow of each winter, during a series of years, had been prevented from melting in the following summer, by the ejection of cinders and ashes from some part where volcanic action still goes on. Early in March (the September of the north) the freezing over of the cove, in which the ship was secured, gave warning that it was high time for her to quit this desolate port. With much difficulty and severe labour, from the fury of the gales, they managed to get away, and we may fully credit Lieutenant Kendal's assertion, that it was a day of rejoicing to all