The Antarctica is actually a desert£®It is the only continent on the earth without a river or a lake£®The Antarctica is covered with ice all year round£®The warmest temperature ever recorded there is zero , at the South Pole£®People used to think that a place so cold would have heavy snowfalls£®But in fact less than ten inches of snowfalls each year , that is , less than half an inch of water£®Ten times that much of rain falls in parts of the African desert£® The little snow that falls in Antarctica never turns into water , It continues to pile up deeper and deeper year after year£®When the snow gets to be about eighty feet deep it is turned to ice by the heavy weight of the snow above it£®