SCOPE OF THE OBSERVATIONS S' 



penetration of the Weddell Sea west of 35° W of which there is authentic record was achieved by 

 Larsen in the 'Jason ' in December 1893. He reached 68° 10' S, not through the heart of the obstruc- 

 tion, however, but along the east coast of Graham Land where the current (p. 314, note i) runs fast 

 and tends to carry the ice away. Ellsworth (1938) reported open water here extending for 300 miles 

 due south of Dundee Island in November 1935. 



These parts of the Pacific sector and of the Weddell Sea have repeatedly defied our efforts to 

 explore them and it may well be that as in the past they will always remain inaccessible to vessels 

 except perhaps to the modern ice-breakers now beginning to be increasingly used in the exploration 

 and development of the southern continent. Even these powerful vessels, however (Ronne, 1952; 

 Capurro, 1955; U.S.N. Hydrographic Office, 1956 and 1957a; Lakteonov, 1957; Guozden, 1959), 

 so far have made little impression on them.^ 



Fig. 2. Local observations. The South Georgia 

 whaHng grounds. 



Fig. 3. Local observations. The Bransfield 

 Strait region. 



The most recent account of the enduring obstruction that manifestly exists in the heart of the 

 Weddell embayment is given by Fuchs (1958), who, describing the voyage of the 'Theron' in 1955-6, 

 when, beset near 68° S, 25° W, she narrowly escaped freezing in, records the following interesting 

 passage: 'All the time the combination of south-easterly winds and a south-westerly current was 

 moving the whole melange of pack ice, bergs, and ship to the west and north. I became convinced 

 from our drift of fifteen to twenty miles each day that the ice of the central Weddell Sea is always 

 turning in a clockwise direction, a certain quantity of floes and bergs being constantly delivered to the 

 open water along the northern edge of the ice while the remainder continues to rotate as a hard core 

 for many years'. 



Shackleton (19 19) speaks in similar terms, referring to the great quantities of ice that sweep along 

 the continental coast from the east under the influence of the prevailing current, filling up the ' bight 

 of the Weddell Sea as they move north in a great semicircle ', and, like Fuchs, suggesting that some 

 of this ice ' doubtless describes almost a complete circle '. 



The pack of the central Weddell Sea in short presents an insuperable obstacle to southing vessels. 

 I saw something of it in January 1932 and wrote the following account of it (Marr, 1933) shortly 

 afterwards : ' It was by far the heaviest ice that any of us had yet seen, stretching solidly to the south- 

 ward without a single crack through which a ship might force a passage. It had apparently been 



1 Less than a year ago, however, American ice-breakers, working in the eastern part of the Pacific sector, did in fact succeed 

 in penetrating to an ice-bound coast in 100° W (Anon., 19606). 



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