3-065-927 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The Ocean Depth Exploring Voyage: H.M.S. Challenger at anchor in Royal Sound, Kerguelen Land, 1874. 'The four years' service of H.M.S. Challenger, with a party of scientific men, employed by her Majesty's Government in exploring the depths of the great southern oceans, their currents, tides, and temperature, their atmospheric conditions, and their vegetation and animal life, is still watched by us with great interest. Kerguelen Land, a lonely group of islands between the Indian and the Antarctic Oceans, equally distant from the southernmost points of Africa and Australia, is the subject of our Illustration..."The only published accounts of Kerguelen are contained in Cook's and Ross's voyages; and the chart is vague, except in the delineation of the east side of the island, which is much cut up by fiords, forming a chain of magnificent harbours. From the information gleaned by the Challenger, it appears that the west coast is very similar. About the centre of the island the bays extend so deeply into the interior from the south and west coasts that it is customary to haul boats across the dividing isthmus".' From "Illustrated London News", 1874.