KERGUELEN ISLAND

This article appears in Volume V15, Page 755 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: JUN-KHA

KERGUELEN ISLAND , KERGUELEN'S LAND, Or DESOLATION ISLAND, an island in the Southern Ocean, to the S.E. of the Cape of Good Hope, and S.W. of Australia, and nearly half-way between them. Kerguelen lies between 48 39' and 49 44' S. and 68 42' and 7o 35' E. Its extreme length is about 85 m., but the area is only about 1400 sq. m. The island is throughout mountainous, presenting from the sea in some directions the appearance of a

series

SERIES (a Latin word from serere, to join)

of jagged peaks. The various ridges and mountain masses are separated by steep-sided valleys, which run down to the sea, forming deep fjords, so that no part of the interior is more than 12 M. from the sea. The

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

summits are Mounts Ross (6120 ft.), Richards (4000),

Crozier

CROZIER
CROZIER, WILLIAM (1855– )

(3251), Wyville Thomson (316o), Hooker (2600), Moseley (2400). The coast-line is extremely irregular, and the fjords, at least on the north,

east

EAST
EAST, ALFRED (1849- )

and south, form a

series

SERIES (a Latin word from serere, to join)

of well-sheltered harbours. As the prevailing winds are westerly, the safest anchorage is on the north-

east

EAST
EAST, ALFRED (1849- )

. Christmas Harbour on the north and Royal Sound on the south are noble harbours, the latter with a labyrinth of islets interspersed over upwards of 20 M. of land-locked waters. The scenery is generally magnificent. A

district

DISTRICT

of considerable extent in the centre of the island is occupied
by snowfields, whence glaciers descend east and west to the sea. The whole island, exclusive of the snowfields, abounds in fresh-water lakes and pools in the hills and lower ground. Hidden deep mudholes are frequent.
Kerguelen Island is of undoubted volcanic origin, the prevailing rock being basaltic lavas, intersected occasionally by dikes, and an active volcano and hot springs are said to exist in the south-west of the island. Judging from the abundant fossil remains of trees, the island must have been thickly clothed with woods and other vegetation of which it has no doubt been denuded by volcanic action and submergence, and possibly by changes of climate. It presents evidences of having been subjected to powerful glaciation, and to subsequent immersion and immense denudation. The soundings made by the " Challenger " and " Gazelle " and the affinities which in certain respects exist between the islands, seem to point to the existence at one time of an extensive land area in this quarter, of which Kerguelen, Prince Edward's Islands, the Crozets, St Paul and Amsterdam are the remains. The Kerguelen

plateau

rises in many parts to within 1500 fathoms of the surface of the sea. Beds of coal and of red earth are found in some places. The summits of the flat-topped hills about Betsy

Cove

COVE

, in the south-east of the island, are formed of caps of basalt.
According to Sir J. D. Hooker the vegetation of Kerguelen Island is of great antiquity; and may have originally reached it from the American continent; it has no affinities with Africa. The present climate is not favourable to permanent vegetation; the island lies within the belt of rain at all seasons of the year, and is reached by no drying winds; its temperature is kept down by the surrounding vast expanse of sea, and it lies within the line of the cold Antarctic drift. The temperature, however, is equable. The mean annual temperature is about 39 F., while the summer temperature has been observed to approach 70. Tempests and squalls are frequent, and the weather is rarely calm. On the lower slopes of the mountains a rank vegetation exists, which, from the conditions mentioned, is constantly saturated with moisture. A rank grass, Festuca Cookii, grows thickly in places up to 300 ft., with Azorella, Cotula plumosa, &c. Sir J. D. Hooker enumerated twenty-one species of flowering plants, and seven of ferns, lycopods, and Characeae; at least seventy-four species of mosses, twenty-five of Hepaticae, and sixty-one of lichens are known, and there are probably many more. Several of the marine and many species of freshwater algae are peculiar to the island. The characteristic feature of the vegetation, the Kerguelen's Land cabbage, was formerly abundant, but has been greatly reduced by rabbits introduced on to the island. Fur-seals are still found in Kerguelen, though their numbers have been reduced by reckless slaughter. The sea-elephant and sea-leopard are characteristic. Penguins of various kinds are abundant; a teal .(Querquedula Eatoni) peculiar to Kerguelen and the Crozets is also found in consider-able numbers, and petrels, especially the giant petrel (Ossifraga gigantea), skuas, gulls, sheath-bills (Chionis

minor

), albatross, terns, cormorants and Cape pigeons frequent the island. There is a considerable variety of insects, many of them with remarkable peculiarities of structure, and with a predominance of forms incapable of flying.
The island was discovered by the French navigator, Yves Joseph de Kerguelen-Tremarec, a

Breton

BRETON, BRITTON
BRETON, JULES ADOLPHE

noble (1745-1797), on the 13th of February 1772, and partly surveyed by him in the following year. He was one of those explorers who had been attracted by the belief in a rich southern land, and this island, the South France of his first discovery, was afterwards called by him Desolation Land in his disappointment. Captain Cook visited the island in 1776, and, among other expeditions, the " Challenger " spent some time here, and its staff visited and surveyed various parts of it in January 1874. It was occupied from October 1874 to February 1875 by the expeditions sent from England, Germany, and the United States to observe the transit of Venus. The German South Polar expedition in 190119o2 established a meteorological and magnetic station at Royal Sound, under Dr Enzensperger, who died there. In January 1893 Kerguelen was annexed by France, and its commercial exploitation was assigned to a private company.
See Y. J. de Kerguelen-Tr6marec, Relation de deux voyages clans les mers australes (Paris, 1782) ; Narratives of the Voyages of Captain Cook and the " Challenger " Expedition; Phil. Trans., vol. 168, containing account of the collections made in Kerguelen by the British transit of Venus expedition in 18741875; Lieutard," Mission aux Iles Kerguelen," &c., Annales hydrographiques (Paris, 1893).
KERGUELEN'S LAND CABBAGE, in botany, Pringlea antiscorbutica (natural order Cruciferae), a plant resembling in habit, and belonging to the same family as, the common cabbage (Brassica oleracea). The cabbage-like heads of leaves abound ina

pale

PALE (through Fr. pal, from Lat. palms, a stake, for paglus, from the stem pag- of pangere, to fix; " pole " is from the same original source)

yellow highly pungent essential oil, which gives the plant a peculiar flavour but renders it extremely wholesome. It was discovered by Captain Cook during his first voyage, but the first account of it was published by (Sir) Joseph Hooker in The Botany of the Antarctic Voyage of the "Erebus" and " Terror " in 1839-1843. During the stay of the latter expedition on the island, daily use was made of this vegetable either cooked by itself or boiled with the ship's beef, pork or pea-soup. Hooker observes of it, " This is perhaps the most interesting plant pro-cured during the whole of the voyage performed in the Antarctic Sea, growing as it does upon an island the remotest of any from a continent, and yielding, besides this esculent, only seventeen other flowering plants."

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