Abstract
ON Tuesday, January 17, 1775, Capt. Cook landed on this remote island, which is situated about 1000 miles east of Cape Horn, in about 54° S. lat. and 37° W. long., and took possession of it in the name of King George the Third, after whom he named it. Capt. Cook landed in three different places, and the ceremonyof addingthe island to the British dominions, he informs us, was performed under a waving of colours and a discharge of small arms. Whether any British subject has ever set foot on it since that day I know not; but the description of the island by its famous discoverer was not likely to tempt any one to go out of his way with that object in view. Although lying only as far south of the equator as York is north of it, South Georgia is covered, in the higher parts at least, with permanent snows and glaciers, and is altogether of a most wild and desolate aspect. Large masses of ice were ocontinually breaking off from the perpendicular cliffs and falling into the sea with a noise like cannon. “The inner parts of the country,” says Cook, “were not less savage and horrible. The wild rocks raised their lofty summits till they were lost in the clouds, and the valleys lay ocovered with everlasting snow. Not a tree was to be seen, nor a shrub even big enough to make a toothpick. The only vegetation we met with was a coarse strong-Waded grass growing in tufts, wild burnet, and a plant like moss, which sprung from the rocks.”
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HEMSLEY, W. Vegetation of South Georgia . Nature 34, 106–107 (1886). https://doi.org/10.1038/034106a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/034106a0