The Chatham Islands and an Antarctic Continent

Abstract

AT the last meeting of the Royal Geographical Society Mr. H. O. Forbes discussed the question of the former extension of an Antarctic continent in relation to certain observations made during a recent visit to the Chatham Islands. The whole surface of these islands, especially Wharekauri and Rangiauria, is covered with a bed of peat in places over forty feet in depth—deeper in the northern part than in the southern—traversable in safety only by those acquainted with the country; for to the inexperienced eye there seems in most places no difference in the surface which can carry with safety both horse and rider, and that on which the lightest-footed pedestrian cannot venture without being engulfed. The surface of some of the larger and wetter depressions in the ground was covered with a brilliant-coloured carpet of luxuriant mosses, emitting an aromatic fragrance, spread out in artless undesigned parterres of rich commingled green, yellow, and purple, and endless shades of these, warning the traveller of the existence of dangerous bogs beneath, and brightening miles of treeless moorland, which, but for those floating gardens, would be uninviting and uninteresting. In many places all over the island this great peat-moss is on fire, and has for years been smouldering underground, or burning in the exposed faces of the great pits which have now been burnt out. Dr. Dieffenbach mentions these fires at his visit in 1840, and states that the combustion had begun before 1834. They appear to have been burning in one part or another of the island ever since Dieffenbach's visit. A peculiarity in the main island that strikes the visitor very early is the occurrence of many lakes and tarns. These lakes are, for the most part, on the eastern side, at the back of the low hills facing Petre Bay. The largest is fifteen miles long, over forty miles in circumference, and about ten and a half miles broad at its widest part.