THE ANTARCTIC REGIONS. 331 



approximately tlie sixtieth to the sixty-third parallel of latitude), 

 states that " the temperature of the water was 34, of the air iu 

 the shade 45, iu the sun 77, with a corresponding general 

 warmth to the feelings of the crew." The highest reading of the 

 thermometer for the month of January was noted by Kristensen 

 to be 40 F., and the lowest, 27; fifty-three years earlier (1842) 

 Ross found for the same month 39 and 27'5, with a mean of 

 32, thus indicating an equality almost without fluctuation. 



The fact that the high south has not yet been penetrated in 

 the winter months leaves us in uncertainty as to the winter tem- 

 peratures that may prevail there ; but some indications of this 

 temperature are to be found in the records which have been ob- 

 tained in the circumantarctic tract. Ross registered the absolute 

 minimum, for the year 1.S42, in the Falkland Islands to be only 

 19*2 ( 5'7 R.) ; but still more significant is the reading of the 

 minimum thermometer which was left by Foster in 1829 on 

 Deception Island, and recovered by Captain W. H. Smiley (as 

 reported by Wilkes) in 1842, or after an interval of thirteen years. 

 The registry was found to be 5 F. ( 16*45 R.). It is true that 

 Deception Island lies well without the Antarctic Circle, and that 

 its insular condition must measurablv reduce the rigors of a win- 

 ter climate ; but even these conditions permit us to form some 

 just estimate of what " lies beyond," and of making some interest- 

 ing comparisons with corresponding localities (so far as latitude 

 is concerned) in the north. Thus, at Fort Reliance, in North 

 America, the mercury descends to 70 F,, and at Jakutsk, in 

 Siberia, nearly one degree nearer to the equator, to 75; and, 

 if we are to fully believe the registry at Verkhojansk, for the 

 winter of 1893, the unprecedentedly low temperature of 90 was 

 reached. But one need not make comparisons with these espe- 

 cially cold localities, as it is well known that at the sites of the 

 principal commercial cities of the world the mercury at times 

 descends to from 5 to 15 (New York and Philadelphia, 186G, 

 1895). On January 23, 1823, the mercury in Berlin descended to 

 31 F., and in Paris, on January 25, 1795, to 21. It is per- 

 haps just to conclude from these and other facts that the extreme 

 winter climate of the Austral Ocean, on or about latitude 63 

 south, is no more severe than that of southern France, and hardly 

 more so than that of northern Italy. And while it is doubtless 

 true that a considerably lower marking of the thermometer 

 would be found in the much more extreme regions of the south, 

 or nearer to the pole, it is practically certain that nothing com- 

 parable to the cold of the opposite face of the globe exists. 



In summing up the various facts that have been noted, it may 

 be admitted that they argue rather against than in favor of con- 

 tinental conditions, but they are by no means sufficient to make a 



