The accuracy of the American navigator’s observations has been, however, disputed by geographers, and in 1841 Sir James Ross demonstrated that the threshold of this problematical continent was, at least in certain places, much more distant than Wilkes had supposed. Sir James himself discovered, between 70° and 78° south latitude, an extensive tract of land which he named South Victoria, and which extends nearer the South Pole than any other yet known. Its shores are rendered imposing by a line of lofty and snow-crowned mountains, some of which are volcanic. To two of the more majestic of these the English voyager gave the names of his two ships—Mount Erebus and Mount Terror. The former is 12,400 feet in height.[192]
Sir James Ross traced the continents of this desolate icy coast for seven hundred miles, until his progress was arrested by a solid impenetrable barrier of lofty ice. He reached, however, on another meridian, the latitude of 78° 4´ south, the nearest approach yet made to the Antarctic Pole.
CHAPTER II.
ANIMAL LIFE AND VEGETABLE LIFE IN THE POLAR DESERTS.
THE mantle which Flora has spread over the naked body of this earth is, says Humboldt, unequally woven. Thickest in those places where the sun soars to a great altitude in a cloudless sky, it is of thinner texture towards the poles, where Nature seems benumbed and torpid, where the precipitate return of frost leaves no time for the buds to unfold, and surprises the fruits before they have attained maturity.
The number of plants capable of withstanding the prolonged and terrible Arctic winters, and of contenting themselves with the scanty heat and light which the pale sun of those regions pours upon them during his brief stay above the horizon, is, in effect, very limited. We have seen, in the preceding chapter, how restricted is the flora of that part of the American polar lands which has received the somewhat ambitious appellation of the “Wooded Region.” This flora, so poor and stunted, is nevertheless the flora of a comparatively fortunate zone. We find it, with some variations, to the north of Sweden, Russia, and Siberia. There we encounter those ultimate masses of foliage which have any pretensions to the title of Forests—Pines, Firs, Elms, and Birches are the only species which compose them. Further north these trees form but small woods, alternating with clumps of poplars and dwarf willows. The Myrtle of our sub-Alpine forests, and a small winding Honeysuckle, with rounded leaves, rosy and fragrant flowers, cover in certain places considerable surfaces. Still further north the arborescent species are completely wanting; but vivacious plants, belonging to the families of Ranunculaceæ, Saxifragaceæ, Cruciferæ, and Gramineæ, spread out their flowers on the surface of the rocks. To the firs and birches, already so stinted, succeed, in the same localities, a few scattered shrubs; among others, the thorny Gooseberry bush, the common Strawberry, the Raspberry-pseudo-Mulberry (Rubus Chamæmorus)—exclusively indigenous to these regions—and the Oleander of Lapland (Rhododendron Laponicum). Still advancing northward, we meet, on the extreme confines of the continent, some Dravas (Cruciferæ), Potentillas (Rosaceæ), Bur-weeds and Rushes (Cyperaceæ), and, finally, a few Mosses and Lichens. The commonest mosses are the Splechnum, which resemble small umbels; and, in moist localities, the Sphagnum, or Bog-Moss, whose successive accumulation, from a very remote epoch, has formed, with the detritus of some Cyperaceæ, extensive breadths of peat, which might be utilized as a combustible. The lichens and the mosses are the last plants which, owing to the simplicity of their organization, are able to develop and reproduce themselves on the Arctic rocks and under the dense layer of snow which covers them. Their abundance in almost all the polar wastes, where every other nutritious plant is wanting, proves an inestimable benefit for the few inhabitants of those deserts. It will suffice to mention, as representatives of the singular family of Cryptogams, the Iceland Moss, which medical science employs in the treatment of pulmonary diseases; and the Reindeer Moss, whose foliaceous expansions frequently cover vast extents of soil, and form veritable pasture-grounds where the reindeer find almost their only nutriment.
But if the Polar Flora offers few details of interest, it is otherwise with the Polar Fauna. The most important orders of the Animal Kingdom, and particularly of the class Mammalia, are there represented by species not less worthy of attention than those that people the savage countries of the torrid and temperate zones.
Among the Ruminantia we may mention the Eland and the Stag of Canada, which range—the former in the Old and New Continents, the latter in the New World only—to a very high latitude; but, to confine myself to the characteristic species of the Hyperborean Fauna, I shall here speak only of the Musk-Ox and the Reindeer.
The Musk-Ox, or Ovibos (Ovibos Moschatus), is, as its zoological name indicates, an intermediate animal between the ox and the sheep. Smaller than the former, larger than the latter, he reminds us equally of both in his form and appearance. He has an obtuse nose; horns broad at the base, covering the forehead and crown of the head, and curving downwards between the eye and ear until about the level of the mouth, where they turn upwards; the tail is short, and almost lost in the thickness of the hair, which is generally of a dark brown, and of two kinds, as with all the animals of Polar regions,—a long hair, which on some parts of the body is thick and curled, and, beneath it, a fine kind of soft, ash-coloured wool; the legs are short and thick, and furnished with narrow hoofs, resembling those of the moose. The female is smaller than the male, and has also smaller horns. Her general colour is black, except that the legs are whitish; and along the back runs an elevated ridge or mane of dusky hair.