Page:Physical Geography of the Sea and its Meteorology.djvu/478

452 continent advances farthest northward in a peninsula S.S.E. of the southern end of America, reaching in Trinity Land almost to 62° south latitude. Outwardly these lands exhibit a naked, rocky, partly volcanic desert, with high rocks destitute of vegetation, always covered with ice and snow, and so surrounded with ice that it is difficult or impossible to examine the coast very closely. * * *

842. Antarctic expeditions.—"The principal discoverers of these coasts are (Wilkes), D'Urville, and Ross (the younger), of whom the latter, in 1842, followed a coast over 100 miles between 72° and 79° south latitude, and 160° and 170° east longitude, to which he gave the name Victoria Land, and on which he discovered a volcano (Erebus) 10,200 feet high in 167° east longitude and 77° south latitude, as well as another extinct one (Terror) 10,200 feet high, and then discovered the magnetic south pole." 

CHAPTER XXI. § 850-880.—THE ANTARCTIC REGIONS AND THEIR CLIMATOLOGY.

850. Indications of a mild climate about the south pole.—During our investigations of the winds and currents, facts and circumstances have been revealed which indicate the existence of a mild climate— mild by comparison— within the antarctic circle. These indications plead most eloquently the course of exploration there the facts and circumstances which suggest mildness of climate about the south pole are these: a low barometer, a high degree of aerial rarefaction, and strong winds from the north.

851. The story of the winds.—The winds were the first to whisper Of this strange state of things, and to intimate to us that the antarctic climates are in winter very unlike the arctic for rigour and seventy. In dividing the sea into wind-bands (§ 8522) or longitudinal belts 5° of latitude broad each, I excluded from the table on the next page, observations from those parts of the sea, such as the North Indian Ocean, the China Sea, and others where monsoons prevail. The object of this exclusion was to investigate the general movements of the atmosphere, hence