On the other
hand, in the intertropical parts of America, Asia, and Africa, they
have never been observed; nor at the Cape of Good Hope, nor in
Australia. (11/16. I have given details (the first, I believe,
published) on this subject in the first edition, and in the
Appendix to it. I have there shown that the apparent exceptions to
the absence of erratic boulders in certain hot countries are due to
erroneous observations; several statements there given I have since
found confirmed by various authors.)
ON THE CLIMATE AND PRODUCTIONS OF THE ANTARCTIC ISLANDS.
Considering the rankness of the vegetation in Tierra del Fuego, and
on the coast northward of it, the condition of the islands south
and south-west of America is truly surprising. Sandwich Land, in
the latitude of the north part of Scotland, was found by Cook,
during the hottest month of the year, "covered many fathoms thick
with everlasting snow;" and there seems to be scarcely any
vegetation. Georgia, an island 96 miles long and 10 broad, in the
latitude of Yorkshire, "in the very height of summer, is in a
manner wholly covered with frozen snow." It can boast only of moss,
some tufts of grass, and wild burnet; it has only one land-bird
(Anthus correndera), yet Iceland, which is 10 degrees nearer the
pole, has, according to Mackenzie, fifteen land-birds.
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