Antarctic

(ant-ärk´tik), a term signifying the opposite of Arctic , and therefore relating to the southern pole or to the regions near it. The Antarctic Circle , which of course corresponds to the Arctic Circle , is a circle parallel to the equator and distant from the south pole 23° 28´, marking the area within which the sun does not set when on the tropic of Capricorn. The Antarctic Circle has been arbitrarily fixed on as the limits of the Antarctic Ocean, it being the average limit of the pack-ice; but the name is often extended to embrace a much wider area. The lands within or near the Antarctic Circle are but imperfectly known, and a very large area around the south pole is altogether unknown. The work of exploration has been hitherto baffled at various points by what seems an unsurmountable ice-barrier, which in some places is connected with ma es of land and may as a whole belong to a great Antarctic continent. Among land-ma es that have long been known to exist in the Antarctic Ocean, though our knowledge of them is very imperfect, are those to which have been attached the names Graham Land, Victoria Land, Wilkes Land, Enderby Land, South Shetland Islands, . The Antarctic regions are even colder and more inhospitable than the Arctic, and partly on account of their remotene from the maritime nations there have been far fewer efforts at their exploration, the south pole being far le a goal of discovery than the north. See South Polar Expeditions . IMG:4014330425200354480_image067.jpg:Ant-eater Ant-eater ( Myrmecophăga jubāta )