Page:The Botany of the Antarctic Voyage.djvu/17

Rh Flora of that interesting and now highly important group, which, though it had been partially examined by Admiral D'Urville, and previously by the officers of that unfortunate ship, the "Uranie," under the command of Captain Freycinet, still afforded considerable novelty.

On the 6th of September, the early spring of the southern latitudes, the "Erebus and Terror," with a portion of the officers, sailed from Berkeley Sound for the neighbourhood of Cape Horn, and arrived there, after having been driven far out of their course by the equinoctial gales, on the 21st, casting anchor in St. Martin's Cove, Hermit Island, lat. 56°, within a few miles of the far-famed Cape Horn, which is immediately opposite the mouth of the Cove. This is the most southerly spot on the globe which possesses anything above a herbaceous vegetation. Here, in the sheltered bays, the two kinds of Antarctic Beech, the Evergreen and Deciduous, form a dense, though small forest, and ascend, in a stunted form, to an elevation of 1000 feet on the hills. Many of the plants gathered during Cook's first voyage, by Sir Joseph Banks and Solander, and by Forster during his second, as also those which Mr. Menzies had detected, when accompanying Vancouver's expedition, and which have not been hitherto published, were found again; and when the ships returned to the Falklands in November, Captain Ross transported many hundreds of young Beech-trees and caused them to be planted there, in hopes that the productions of so near a country might be found to succeed on these treeless islands. Some were also sent home and have since been distributed in England, from the Royal Botanic Gardens of Kew.

The third cruise to the South Polar Regions was commenced on the morning of the 17th of December 1842, when the expedition sailed from Berkeley Sound. An opportunity was afforded again of tracing the southern limit of Seaweeds. The Macrocystis was lost in lat. 55° S., long. 57° W.; but on attaining lat. 63°, long. 54°, another species appeared which had been originally discovered by Webster during the stay of Captain Forster's ship, the "Chanticleer," in Deception Island, one of the South Shetland group, and again found by the expedition of Admiral D'Urville, and has since been published under the name of Scytothalia Jacquinotii. On the 28th land was made, a portion of Palmer's Land, to which the name of "Terre Louis Philippe" has since been given by D'Urville. The ships were already in the pack-ice, through which we penetrated, tracing the land to 64°, and seeing a small volcanic island, lying a few miles off