Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume I.djvu/575

ANTARCTIC DISCOVERY ANT-EATER 543 land, a still further southwestern extension of Palmer's land, were discovered in 1831 and 1832 by Biscoe, who circumnavigated the southern ice region, an expedition having been fitted out for the purpose by Messrs. Enderby, merchants of London. In 1837 and 1838 Du- mont d'Urville and Balleny made comparative- ly unimportant explorations ; and in 1839 the French and American governments each sent out an expedition for a voyage of discovery in the Southern ocean. Dumont d'Urville com- manded the French ships, and Lieut. Charles "Wilkes the United States fleet of four vessels. On Jan. 16, 1842, Wilkes's officers discovered land from the masthead in about Ion. 160 E., lat. 61 S. The expedition followed the indi- cations of land to the westward for several days, and afterward for several weeks sailed along an immense ice field, which "Wilkes thought to be a continuous barrier lying along the coast of an antarctic continent. As he saw land only at a few widely separated points, his inference that there existed a continuous coast line is one that greatly needs confirmation ; isl- ands lay all about his course a little further to the north, and they may easily have been the only interruptions the solid ice floe found to the south. The French expedition under D'Urville also discovered a considerable extent of coast in the same quarter, and named it Ad61ie; but he succeeded no more than Wilkes in es- tablishing the fact of its continuity for any great distance. It is now generally conceded that it would be rash to assume from the results of these two expeditions that the existence of a great antarctic continent is proved. In Janu- ary, 1841, Capt. James Clarke Ross, who com- manded an English expedition in the Erebus and Terror, discovered a line of coast trending southward from a point near lat. 70 41' S., Ion. 172 30' E. Here were mountains 9,000 to 12,000 feet high, of volcanic origin ; one, Mt. Erebus, in lat. 77 32' S., Ion. 167 E., was active, and near it was an extinct crater which Rosa called Mt. Terror. The whole line of coast discovered by Ross was steep and rocky, and the land he saw (Victoria Land) was, like almost all that seen by the other explorers, entirely bare. Since 1841 no important dis- coveries have been made in the antarctic seas. ANTARCTIC OCEAN, and Antarctic Circle. See POLAE SEAS, and POLAR CIRCLES. ANT-EATER, the popular name of the South American species of the old genus myrmeco- phaga, of the edentate order of mammals, from the principal food of these animals. The or- dinal characters are given under EDENTATA. The South American ant-eaters are covered with hair ; the scaly ant-eaters of the old world are described under PANGOLIN. None of them have any teeth, and the plantigrade anterior feet are armed with enormous claws, bent downward and inward toward the palm, so that Great Ant-Eater (Myrmecophaga jubata). the animal walks on the outer edge of the foot. In this way the points are kept unbroken, serv- ing as admirable instruments for tearing down ant hills, though they render the gait of the creature very slow and awkward. The bones of the jaws and nose are elongated into a kind of tube, nearly cylindrical, at the end of which is the small circular mouth, from which is pro- truded the long tongue covered with a gluti- nous saliva by which its food is captured. The great ant-eater or ant bear (myrmecophaga ju-