Remarks on the plant geography of the southern cold temperate zone

1960 ◽  
Vol 152 (949) ◽  
pp. 447-457 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Temperate Zone ◽  
Tierra Del Fuego ◽  
Plant Geography ◽  
The North ◽  
Antarctic Continent ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Antarctic ◽  
Northern And Southern Hemispheres ◽  
Joseph Hooker

The difference between the northern and southern hemispheres in the distribution of land and sea fundamentally affects the problems of the origin, dispersal and distribution of the biota. Whereas a circumpolar distribution seems to be quite natural in the north, it is much more difficult to explain when we get to the south. Although the naturalists of James Cook’s first and second voyages visited both New Zealand and Tierra del Fuego, the purport of the existence of closely related but geographically widely disjunct organisms did not dawn upon them; Terra Australis, a vision of the old cosmographers to counterbalance the solid North, but searched for in vain by Cook, had disappeared from the map. It fell to Joseph Hooker to discover a circumpolar Flora Antarctica at a time when the Antarctic Continent, thus named by Ross, had become a reality. What Hooker found on truly antarctic shores was not very promising, but the discovery of fossilized gymnosperm wood on Kerguelen made him speculate on former antarctic forests and on the possibility of greater land areas where only small, scattered islands are found now. In a letter to Darwin in November 1851 (Huxley 1918, p. 445) he wrote: ‘... recent discoveries rather tend to ally the N. Zeald. Flora with the Australian—though there is enough affinity with extratropical S. America to be

V.—Mr. Harkee and Mr. Debley on the Scandinavian Ice-Sheet

1894 ◽  
Vol 1 (11) ◽  
pp. 496-499
Author(s):  
Henry H. Howorth
Keyword(s):  
Ice Sheet ◽  
Good Effect ◽  
The North ◽  
The Matrix ◽  
Glacier Ice ◽  
Inductive Methods ◽  
The North Sea ◽  
Antarctic Continent ◽  
The Alps ◽  
The Difference

Mr. Deeley tells your readers that he has recently been to the summit of Mont Blanc, and has been studying the difference between névé and glacier ice. This is interesting; but we thought that a great many people had done the same thing during the last hundred years, and we thought that one of them, Forbes, had studied the famous Mountain and the phenomenoninquestion to good effect, not in a casual visit to the Alps, but in the course of many years of patient labour. Among other things we also thought he had shown that in a viscous body like ice, the slope of the upper surface necessary to make it begin to move is the same as the slope which, would be required to induce motion in the ice if its bed were inclined at an angle. He further collected considerable evidence to show what the least angle is upon which ice will begin to move. This is the slope, the least slope, available. It is nothing less than astounding to me that anyone should venture to postulate a Scand in avian ice-sheet in the North Sea until he had considered this necessary factor, and how it would operate.The Scand in avian ice-sheet was, I believe, the invention of Croll, who, sittinginhis arm-chair and endowed with a brilliant imagination, imposed upon sober science this extraordinary postulate. He did not dream of testing it by an examination of the coasts of Norway, or even of Britain, but put it forward apparently as a magnificent deduction. All deductions untested by experiment are dangerous. Thus it came about that the great monster which is said to have come from Norway, goodness knows by what mechanical process, speedily dissolved away on the application of inductive methods. Of course it still maintained its hold upon that section, of geologists who dogmatiseinprint a great deal about the Glacial period before they have ever seen a glacier at work at all; but I am speaking of those who have studied the problem inductively. First Mr. James Geikie, a disciple of Croll, was obliged to confess that this ice-sheet, which is actually said to have advanced as far as the hundred-fathom line in the Atlantic, and there presented a cliff of ice like the Antarctic continent, never can have reached the Faroes, which had an ice-sheet of their own. Next Messrs. Peach and Home were constrained to admit that no traces of it of any kind occur in the Orkneys, or in Eastern Scotland. They still maintained its presence in the Shetlands; however, this was upon evidence which is somewhat extraordinary. I do not mean the evidence as to the direction of the striation, which was so roughly handled by Mr. Milne-Home, but I mean the evidence they adduce that the boulders found on the islands are apparently all local ones, and that, contrary to the deposits of glaciers, they diminish in number as we recede from the matrix whence they were derived.

Origins of the Russian Antarctic expedition: 1819–1821

Polar Record ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 49 (2) ◽  
pp. 180-192 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erki Tammiksaar ◽  
Tarmo Kiik
Keyword(s):  
Russian Literature ◽  
Russian Empire ◽  
Russian Government ◽  
The Real ◽  
Antarctic Expedition ◽  
Russian Antarctic Expedition ◽  
Antarctic Continent ◽  
The Difference ◽  
The Russian Empire ◽  
The Antarctic

ABSTRACTIn 1819, the Russian government launched two expeditions: the first squadron of two ships departed to explore the southern polar areas, and the second set out for the northern polar areas. The expedition to the southern polar areas took place under the command of Fabian Gottlieb von Bellingshausen. Up to the present day, very little information is available, from the Russian literature, about the initiator and main goals of the expedition. At the same time, the travels and main results of the expedition have been widely popularised, but not necessarily accurately, in Russian as well as in English. On the basis of recently discovered documents, this article attempts to establish who the initiator of these Russian expeditions was, how the expeditions were prepared, and whether the main tasks of the expeditions were realised. The conclusion is that Jean-Baptiste Prevost de Sansac, Marquis de Traversay was the initiator of the Russian Antarctic expedition, not the Russian navigators Adam Johan von Krusenstern, Otto von Kotzebue, Gavrila A. Sarychev or Vasilii M. Golovnin as stated in Soviet publications. The real aim of the expedition was to discover the Antarctic continent which would have added glory to de Traversay as well as to Emperor Alexander I and, in a wider sense, also to the Russian empire. All dates are given according to the old style calendar. The difference with the new style calendar is 12 days.

352. Variations in the carotene and vitamin A contents of certain New Zealand butterfats

1947 ◽  
Vol 15 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 80-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
C. R. Barnicoat
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Vitamin A ◽  
Normal Values ◽  
Late Summer ◽  
Dairy Farms ◽  
Late Winter ◽  
Total Vitamin ◽  
The North ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Very High

1. Chemical estimations of carotene and vitamin A in New Zealand butters from two of the principal butter-making districts of the North Island during the seasons 1935–6 show that the total vitamin A potency was fairly high.2. There were seasonal variations apparently due to nutritional rather than physiological causes. The minimum values (33–37 i.u./g. butterfat) for total vitamin A were found in late summer (February) at the time when the pasture normally tends to dry up, while the peak values (42–53 i.u./g. butterfat) occurred in late winter and spring (July-October). The variations in vitamin A potency with season were in the opposite direction to the variations recorded in the literature for Europe and America. The difference is no doubt due to the practice of stall-feeding in these countries in contrast with the all-the-year-round grazing commonly practised on dairy farms in New Zealand. The spring flush of grass is also later in the season in Europe than in New Zealand.3. The more deeply-coloured Jersey butterfat was only slightly richer in total vitamin A potency than Friesian butterfat.4. Contents of carotene and vitamin A in the fat of colostrum were very high, but reached normal values within 4 or 5 days after parturition.

Bellingshausen and the discovery of Antarctica

Polar Record ◽  
1971 ◽  
Vol 15 (99) ◽  
pp. 887-889 ◽  
Author(s):  
Terence Armstrong
Keyword(s):  
Antarctic Peninsula ◽  
West Coast ◽  
North West ◽  
The North ◽  
Antarctic Continent ◽  
The Antarctic

For the last twenty years there has been considerable Soviet interest in the circumnavigation of Antarctica by the Russian naval expedition of 1819–21, led by Captain T. T. Bellingshausen, with Lieut M. P. Lazarev as his second in command, in the sloops Vostok and Mirnyy. It is now reasonably certain that Bellingshausen sighted the Antarctic continent several times, notably on 27 January 1820 (New Style) at a point about lat 69°21′S, long 2°14′W, and was thus the first to see it (Edward Bransfield sighted the north-west coast of the Antarctic Peninsula at about lat 63°50′S, long 60°30′W on 30 January 1820, three days later). Bellingshausen did not claim to have done so however, but his descriptions of what he saw tally very well with what the edge of the continent here is now known to look like. There is one relatively new point. Bellingshausen's first sighting has been moved forward one day, from the 28th to the 27th, because it has been shown that he was keeping ship's time, from mid-day to mid-day, and therefore that what his log called the 28th (his sighting being in the second half of the day) was what the civil calendar would call the 27th (Belov, 1963, p 19–29). All this much is well documented and unlikely to be disputed. The question is, how much importance did he, and his contemporaries, attach to this discovery? And did he realize that he had seen the edge of a continent? Recent Soviet studies have sought to show that he had a very good idea of the importance of what he had seen, and that this idea did get through to his contemporaries. It is here that there is room for argument with the Soviet scholars.

Against all odds: the birth of the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition, 1955–1958

Polar Record ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 49 (1) ◽  
pp. 50-61
Author(s):  
Stephen Hicks ◽  
Bryan Storey ◽  
Philippa Mein Smith
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
The United States ◽  
Weddell Sea ◽  
Antarctic Expedition ◽  
Foreign Office ◽  
Polar Research Institute ◽  
Antarctic Continent ◽  
British Foreign Office ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Antarctic

ABSTRACTWhen the Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition 1955–1958 advance party sailed from the Millwall Docks in November 1955, bound for the Weddell Sea, their departure was the product of five years of intensive effort on the part of Vivian Fuchs to achieve the first overland crossing of the Antarctic continent. This paper investigates the many obstacles that had to be overcome leading up to Theron sailing and explains the manner in which they were overcome by the Fuchs-Wordie-Clifford triumvirate. The British Foreign Office was particularly opposed to the expedition with the office's focus on sovereignty rather than science while an alternative proposal from Duncan Carse raised a unique set of difficulties. The withdrawal from involvement by the Scott Polar Research Institute Director, Colin Bertram, indicated further disaffection. Most important, if political and financial goals were to be met, was the need for participation by several Commonwealth countries of which New Zealand was the essential partner. Fortunately, the vigorous efforts of a few Antarctic enthusiasts in New Zealand were successful in moving their government to assert its long dormant position in the Ross Dependency. New Zealand's commitment turned the tide of commonwealth apathy towards the TAE. Although the TAE preceded the IGY, events, including the dominating IGY presence of the United States, caused the two projects to become tightly interwoven. For these reasons the years leading up to the departure of Theron were as intriguing as the crossing journey itself.

Global Synoptic Maps *

1952 ◽  
Vol 33 (10) ◽  
pp. 435-437 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leo Alpert
Keyword(s):  
Southern Hemisphere ◽  
Northern Hemisphere ◽  
North Pole ◽  
Weather Bureau ◽  
The North ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Antarctic Continent ◽  
Map Analysis ◽  
The Antarctic

Synoptic map analysis of the Earth from the North Pole to the shores of the Antarctic Continent is now attained by combining the Southern Hemisphere map analysis of the U. S. Weather Bureau-M.I.T. Southern Hemisphere Map Analysis Project, and the Northern Hemisphere map analysis of the published Daily Historical Weather Maps. Sample synoptic maps of the Earth for 19 and 20 March 1949 are presented.

scholarly journals III.—Notes on Some Books from New Zealand

1905 ◽  
Vol 2 (9) ◽  
pp. 403-406 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. H. Rastall
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Volcanic Rocks ◽  
Present Writer ◽  
Lake District ◽  
The South ◽  
The North ◽  
Field Notes ◽  
Geological Map ◽  
The Antarctic

The specimens on which the following notes are based were JL collected by Mr. H. T. Ferrar, M.A., F.G.S., while on a tour through New Zealand, during the time the “Discovery” was being overhauled in Lyttelton, on her return from the Antarctic. The topographical and field notes were also supplied by Mr. Ferrar, and it must be clearly understood that only the detailed petrographical descriptions are the work of the present writer.The specimens were obtained near the middle of the North Island of New Zealand, and in the area marked “acidic volcanic rocks” in Sir James Hector's geological map of New Zealand, published in 1883. They all occur in the Taupo zone, the hot-lake district which lies roughly between Lake Taupo on the south and Lake Rotorua on the north.

The pattern of distribution of the antarctic fauna

1960 ◽  
Vol 152 (949) ◽  
pp. 624-631 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
South America ◽  
Southern Ocean ◽  
Stepping Stones ◽  
Physical Conditions ◽  
Effective Barrier ◽  
Antarctic Continent ◽  
Scotia Arc ◽  
Living Organisms ◽  
The Antarctic

The antarctic climate is unfavourable to the development of a land flora, and the true land fauna is meagre and inconspicuous, consisting of little more than a few insects and fresh water Crustacea; but the water circulation of the southern ocean allows for a rich production of phytoplankton, and we have a very abundant fauna living in or on the sea. Topographical and oceanographical conditions The Antarctic continent (figure 74) is surrounded by a belt of deep, cold ocean, generally very wide, which constitutes a rather effective barrier to shelf-living organisms, but within which the physical conditions tend to be uniform in a circumpolar direction. There are, however, certain submarine ridges which radiate from the continent and which may offer routes or stepping stones for dispersal. Thus the Scotia Arc connects South America with Graham Land and has several island groups. The Kerguelen Gaussberg Ridge (about 70° - 90° E) has fewer islands but no wider gaps of abyssal depths, and south of New Zealand the deep belt is narrower than at most other points.

MAPPING THE ANTARCTIC ICE SHEET BY SATELLITE ALTIMETRY

1966 ◽  
Vol 3 (6) ◽  
pp. 893-901 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. de Q. Robin
Keyword(s):  
Sea Level ◽  
Satellite Altimetry ◽  
Ice Sheets ◽  
Systematic Errors ◽  
Contour Map ◽  
Antarctic Ice Sheet ◽  
Antarctic Continent ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Peripheral Areas ◽  
The Antarctic

It is proposed that a radio altimeter be installed in a satellite to measure its height above the surface. It should work at a frequency of the order of 104 Mc/s and measure heights to an accuracy as close as practicable to ± 5 m. Heights above the ocean would be extrapolated to calculate satellite heights above sea level while over the Antarctic continent, and the difference between this calculated height and the measured height would give the surface elevation. Geometrical sounding errors and systematic errors may cause errors up to 50 m on relatively flat ice sheets, but incremental errors over 10 km should be of the order of 10 m. The systematic coverage of the Antarctic continent by a few weeks' observations from a satellite should make a detailed contour map practicable. The system would not be satisfactory for the peripheral areas where many slopes exceed 1:200 and are less regular than elsewhere, but these areas are being surveyed by conventional methods.

New Zealand's strategic interests in Antarctica

Polar Record ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 47 (2) ◽  
pp. 126-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne-Marie Brady
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Antarctic Continent ◽  
The Antarctic

ABSTRACTNew Zealand has important strategic interests in Antarctica that are as much about geography and the country's geostrategic needs, as they are about history and the politics of maintaining rights gained in an earlier era. This paper outlines the reasons behind New Zealand's involvement in and commitment to Antarctica; profiles the various bodies involved in maintaining and negotiating New Zealand's Antarctic presence and voice on Antarctic affairs; and discusses New Zealand's core interests in the Antarctic continent that help to shape its Antarctic policy.

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