Evening star., 1953-11-16
Strange Antarctic Lond
Is Another Weather Kew
ldeuI Observation Post
Being Set Up by French
By Thomos R. Henry


Nearly 200 years ago a Breton Sea
captain, Yves Joseph de Kerguelen-
Tremarec, sighted through the Antarctic
fog. far southeast of the Cape of Good
Hope, the denSely vegetated shores Of
what seemed to be the long-sought
southern continent.
He called it South France. After he
had landed and made q little recon-
naissance, however. he decided 1t was
a place France wanted nothing to do
with. and changed the name to Desola->
ton Island. 1t has been known ever
since as Kerguelen Land, and has re-
manned completely uninhabited except
for few ship-wrecked sailors and one
eclipse expedition in the 10th century.
1t was not formally annexed as part Of
the French empire until 1893.
But now, at long last, this strange
land Of deep fjords. glaciers and ma
jestic mountains is place Of bustling
activity with the construction of great
French weather observatory equipped
with a large staff of comfortably
housed scientists, which is comparable
to the important Danish-American
weather installation at Thule. Green
land, that preceded the present air
station there.
For the French have found Kergue-
len Land and the nearby Crozet Islands
constitute almost ideal observation
posts for keeping track Of the storm
movements across the bottom of the
globe which largely determine the
weather of the Southern Hemisphere.
They are as important to weather pre-
dictions below the equator as Green
land highs and lows are to that Of
North America and Europe.
HarbOrs Could Conceal Fleets.
Strategically the island might almost
be considered the key to the Antarctic.
Bale du Marin, the French settlement,
is the last port of call for expeditions
sailing to Adele Land. Kerguelens
discovery contains some of the finest
harbors on earth where great fleets
could remain concealed almost indef1-
nitely. 1t was used to some extent by
Germans preying on the Antarctic
whaling fleets in the last war.
The island consists of approximately
/ 400 square miles. It is so cut up by
fjords, however, that no point is more
than IL miles from the sea. The best
approach-Royal Sound on the south
consists of more than 20 miles of land
locked water Seen from the sea, as
Kerguelen saw it, the country seems
densely vegetated. This is true, how
ever, only for the lower slopes of the
ice-covered mountains reaching down
to the sea. The vegetation consists
almost entirely of curious plant known
as Kerguelen cabbage, found nowhere
else on earth.
It is unlikely that before now the
land ever has been inhabited by man.
But along its coast line are many
penguins and a few seal. The land is
peculiar in that most of it's insect life
is winglesS. The interior consists Of
high mountains-the loftiest, Mt. Ross,
reaches an altitude of 6,120 feet-from
which come great glaciers. There are
numerous fresh-Water lakes and pools.
From Ancient Land Mass.
The French scientists now are max
ing intensive studies of the interior.
Apparently, the discoverer was not so
far mistaken as it first seemed in his
belief that he had found the tabled
southern continent. Kerguelen Land,
the nearby, uninhabited Crozet and
Prince Edward Islands and lonely,
desolate Amsterdam Island, all French
possessions, are fragments of an ancient
land mass which may have been almost
of the size of Australia. The greater
part of it long since has vanished under
the sea. There is evidence that Kergue-
len Land, especially, was densely forest
ed at some time in the remote past
and that its surface has been planed
down by intense glaciation.
A subsidiary weather station also has
been installed on Amsterdam Island,
midway between the Cape of Good
Hope and Tasmania which was first
annexed to France in 1870. 1t was the
scene of a famous British naval wreck
and 400 sailors lived on the slopes of
its extinct volcanoes for four months
before they were rescued.