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THE ATLANTIAN
15
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STRANGE LIFE IN THE
ANTARCTIC.
The lands of the Antarctic region
were first discovered by Capt. Cook in
1773-75. He was the first man to cir
cumnavigate the southern polar conti
nent. Since this time, and particular
ly up to 1843, various whaling vessels
ventured as far south as possible and
reported the discovery and naming of
new territory. Each terrestrial pole
is covered by a cap of continuous ice,
which remains unbroken on the land
areas and which varies in size with
the season and with the year. The
Antarctic region has generally been
represented as swarming with animal
life, especially the marine form. The
area is uninhabited by man. The
Antarctic has been the field more par
ticularly of British and German re
search. The unknown Antarctic region
has been estimated as being twice as
large as Europe. A French exploring
expedition on the Pourpuoi Pas, under
Dr. Charcot, is at present in the Ant
arctic.
Ice-Flowers And Real Birds.
Capt. Robert F. Scott, who com
manded the expedition which went
out from London July 31, 1901, in the
British ship Discovery, and in whose
party was Lieut. Shackleton, says in
his diary, under date of March 30, 1902
(Easter Sunday):
“Like yesterday, a fine day, with a
light northerly breeze. This is a sea
son of flowers, and behold! they have
sprung up about us as by magic—very
beautiful ice-flowers, waxen white in
the shadow, but radiant with prismatic
colors, where the sun rays light on
their delicate petals. It was a phe
nomenon to be expected in the newly
frozen sea, but it is curious that they
should come to their greatest perfec
tion on this particular day. The ice
is about five inches thick and free
from snow; consequently the ice-flow
ers stand up clear-cut and perfect in
form. In some places they occur
thickly, with broad, delicate, feathery
laces; in others, again the plants as
sume a spiky appearance, being form
ed of innumerable small specules.
“The more nearly one examines
these beautiful formations, the more
wonderful they appear, as it is only
by close inspection that the mathe
matical precision of the delicate tra
cery can be observed. It is now es
tablished that on the freezing of salt
water much of the brine is mechanical
ly excluded. Sea-ice is much less salt
than the sea itself, and what salt re
mains is supposed only to be entan
gled in the frozen water. The amount
of salt excluded seems to depend on
the rate at which the ice is formed,
and while some is excluded below the
ice-surface, some is also pushed out
above, and it is this that forms the
ice-flowers. The subject is very fas
cinating, and we have already started
to measure the salinity of ice taken
from different depths and formed un
der various conditions.
“The Emperor penguin stands near
ly four feet high, and weighs upward j
of eighty to ninety pounds. He is an i
exceedingly handsome bird, with a
rich black head, a bluish-gray back j
and wings, a lemon-yellow breast, j
with a statin-like gloss on the feath-
ers, and a brilliant patch of orange
on the neck and lower bill. His move
ments are slow and stately, and the
dignity of his appearance is much in
creased by the upright carriage of his
head and bill. When a group of these
birds is met with in the middle of the
desert ice, where all around is gray
and cold and white and silent, the
richness of their coloring strikes one
very forcibly. Their voice is loud and
trumpet-like, and rings out in the
park-ice with a note of defiance that
makes one feel that man is the real
intruder. They have no fear, but an
abundance of inquisitiveness, and a
party such as I have mentioned stand
in a ring all round, with an occasional
remark from one to the other, discuss
ing, no doubt, the nature of this new
and upright neighbor.
“The method employed by the Em
peror penguin for carrying the eggs
and chick upon his feet is shared also
by the King penguin of the sub-Ant
arctic area, as we saw in our visit to
their rookeries in the Macquarie is
lands. The King penguin we saw as
he sat in mud and puddles, with his
single egg upon his feet, and now we
saw the Emperor penguin doing pre
cisely the same thing with his single
chicken to keep it off the ice; and we
are agreed that the term ‘pouch,”
D. A. FARRELL.
Prominent Business Man and an
Officer of the Builders’
Exchange.
which has been used in this connec
tion, is one which not only does not
describe the matter, but is anatomical
ly wrong and misleading. The single
egg, or the chick, sits resting on the
dorsum of the foot, wedged in between
the legs and the lower abdomen, and
over it falls a fold of heavy feathered
skin, which is very loose, and can com
pletely cover up and hide the egg or
chick from view. When the chick is
hungry or inquisitive, it pokes out
from under the maternal (or paternal)
lappet a piebald downy head of black
and white, emitting its shrill and per
sistent pipe until the mother (or the
father) fills it up. The feeding is man
aged as with cormorants and many
other birds, the little one finding re
gurgitated food when it thrusts its
head inside the parent’s mouth.
“I think the chickens hate their par
ents, and when one watches the pro
ceedings in a rookery it strikes one
as not surprising. In the first place,
there is about one chick to ten or
twelve adults, and each adult has an
overpowering desire to ‘sit’ on some
thing. Both males and females want
to nurse, and the result is that when
a chicken finds himself alone there is
a rush on the part of a dozen unem
ployed to seize him. Naturally, he
runs away and dodges here and there
till a six-stone Emperor falls on him,
and then begins a regular football
‘scrimmage,’ in which each tries to
hustle the other off, and the end is
too often disastrous to the chick.
Sometimes he falls into a crack in the
ice, and stays there to be frozen, while
the parents squabble at the top; some
times, rather than be nursed, I have
seen him crawl under an ice-ledge
and remain there, where the old ones
could not reach him. I think it is not
an exaggeration to say that of the 77
per cent that die, no less than half
are killed by kindness.”
MR. PUTOFF SHIRKS A
DUTY.
"My dear,” said Mr. Putoff, as he
looked up from his paper, according
to the Chicago News, “it is estimated
that if a man were relatively as
strong as a beetle he could lift 198,-
000 pounds.”
"Is that so?” rejoined Mrs. Putoff,
as she glanced at the cat and allowed
her left eyelid to drop slowly. “I’ll
look for a beetle the first thing in
the morning.”
“Why, dear?” queried the alleged
head of the domicile.
“Perhaps if I had one,’ ’replied Mrs.
P., “I may be able to get the range
carried into the summer kitchen. I’ve
asked you at least a dozen times
to do it, but it still occupies its win
ter quarters.”
AN ARTLESS CRITICISM OF
ART.
. Sig. Caruso, the great opera singer,
tells of a lady’s maid’s artless criti
cism of an amateur singer whose
methods were of the strained order,
says the Chicago Inter Ocean. The
maid was brushing her mistress’ hair
when she. mentioned that she had
heard Miss Evans sing in the parlor
the night before.
“And how did you like it?” asked
the mistress.
“Oh, mum!” answered the maid, “it
wuz beautiful! She sung just, as if
she was gargling!”