ANTARCTIC SURFACE WATER: EAST WIND DRIFT 17 



current is to some extent deflected northwards near the island, probably owing to the 

 influence of a submarine ridge. This conclusion implies that the surface waters south of 

 the Antarctic Circle in the Bellingshausen Sea have a tendency to circulate in a clock- 

 wise direction. 



Although in the region west of Peter 1st Island the westerly current is only found 

 south of 70 S, it expands to a much greater range north of the Ross Sea. The tempera- 

 ture and salinity distributions in section 14, Plates XXXI-XXXIII, suggest that in 

 165 W the boundary between the westerly and easterly currents lies in 65-68 S. The 

 observations made at the Ross Sea stations 4-24 (Station List, 1930) show no sign of 

 the boundary between the two currents south of 64 S in 171 ° E, and current observa- 

 tions in the approach to the Ross Sea show that the current usually sets to the westward 

 south of 62° S (Antarctic Pilot, 1930, p. 153). Farther west between 153 and i6o°E 

 the observations in sections 12 and 13 (Plates XXV-XXX) show that the isotherms and 

 isohalines slope upwards to the south as far as 61-62 S, indicating that the current 

 boundary lies farther south. 



In the Ross Sea itself the current sets westward along the barrier at about one to 

 three knots, and northward along the western shore {ibid.). The path taken by the 

 water flowing out of the sea is shown plainly by the drift of the 'Aurora' in 191 5-16. 

 The track of the drift makes a grand sweep along the coast of Victoria Land, round 

 Cape Adare, between the Balleny Islands and Oates Land, and away to the north-west. 

 North of 65 30' S the direction of the drift changed to the north-east, indicating that 

 the region of westerly winds began just north of this latitude (Wordie, 1921). The 

 average rate of the drift in the principal direction of movement was 2-8 miles per day (ibid.). 



Farther west the current has been observed north of King George V Land and 

 Adelie Land. There is little doubt that it also exists along the whole of the Antarctic 

 coast south of Australia, but it must be confined to a very narrow coastal region : the 

 observations in sections 10 and 11, Plates XIX-XXIV, show that in 130° E the easterly 

 current extends as far south as St. 887, within 150 miles of the land. 



The observations made by Drygalski in the ' Gauss ' show that between 80 and 90 E 

 the westerly current is again restricted to a narrow coastal strip and does not extend 

 north of 65° S (Willimzik, 1924, p. 27). In the neighbourhood of the coast, between 

 60 and 70 E, the 'Discovery' experienced a westerly set of 12-13 miles a day. The 

 current has also been observed along the coasts of Kemp and Enderby Lands ; in sum- 

 mer it has a speed of about 7 miles a day (Antarctic Pilot, 1930, p. 134). The observa- 

 tions in section 8, Plates XIII-XV, suggest that north of Enderby Land the northern 

 boundary of the current lies near St. 854 in 63 30' S, 46 25' E. The observations in 

 section 7, Plates X-XII, though too far apart to give precise information, show that 

 south of Cape Town the boundary may lie as much as 3 or 4 farther north. 



In the eastern half of the Atlantic Ocean the surface water has a low temperature near 

 the continent, and also north of 60-65 S in a region where the easterly current carries 

 cold water from the northern side of the Weddell Sea. In the intervening region the 

 higher temperature of the water (see Fig. 8, p. 29) suggests that the principal move- 



