er continent, for, with peaks nineteen thousand feet above sea-level,
its mountainous topography is remarkable. Along the coast of Victoria
Land, in the Australian Quadrant, are some of the most majestic vistas
of alpine scenery that the world affords. Rock exposures are rare, ice
appearing everywhere except in the most favoured places.

Regarding plant and animal life upon the land there is little to say.
The vegetable kingdom is represented by plants of low organization such
as mosses, lichens, diatoms and algae. The animal world, so far as true
land-forms are concerned, is limited to types like the protozoa (lowest
in the organic scale), rotifera and minute insect-like mites which lurk
hidden away amongst the tufts of moss or on the under side of loose
stones. Bacteria, most fundamental of all, at the basis, so to speak, of
animal and vegetable life, have a manifold distribution.

It is a very different matter when we turn to the life of the
neighbouring seas, for that vies in abundance with the warmer waters
of lower latitudes. There are innumerable seals, many sea-birds and
millions of penguins. As all these breed on Antarctic shores, the
coastal margin of the continent is not so desolate.

In view of the fact that life, including land-mammals, is abundant in
the North Polar regions, it may be asked why analogous forms are not
better represented in corresponding southern latitudes. Without going
too deeply into the question, it may be briefly stated, firstly, that a
more widespread glaciation than at present prevails invested the great
southern continent and its environing seas, within recent geological
times, effectually exterminating any pre-existing land life. Secondly,
since that period the continent has been isolated by a wide belt of
ocean from other lands, from which restocking might have taken
place after the manner of the North Polar regions. Finally, climatic
conditions in the Antarctic are, latitude for latitude, much more severe
than in the Arctic.

With regard to climate in general, Antarctica has the lowest mean
temperature and the highest wind-velocity of any land existing. This
naturally follows from the fact that it is a lofty expanse of ice-clad
land circumscribing the Pole, and that the Antarctic summer occurs when
the earth is farther from the sun than is the case during the Arctic
summer.

There are those who would impatiently ask, "What is the use of it all?"
The answer is brief.

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