4 DISCOVERY REPORTS 



Many expeditions have visited and made hydrographic investigations in this area. 

 The Expedition Antarctique Beige in the S.Y. ' Belgica ' crossed the southern end of the 

 Bransfield Strait, passing between Snow Island and Smith Island to de Gerlache Strait 

 on the way to the Bellingshausen Sea in January 1898. The first expedition to do any 

 considerable hydrographical work in the Bransfield Strait itself was the Swedish South 

 Polar Expedition in 190 1-3. The Deuxieme Expedition Antarctique Francaise in 

 1908-10 also worked in and south of the Bransfield Strait. Later the German Atlantic 

 Expedition, 1925-7, visited the area in January 1926 and was the first expedition to use 

 echo-sounding. Since March 1927 very considerable work has been done in the 



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Fig. 1 . Chart of the Bransfield Strait showing positions of stations. 



Bransfield Strait and the neighbouring seas by the various ships of the Discovery 

 Committee, i.e. the R.R.S. 'Discovery', the R.R.S. 'William Scoresby' and the 

 R.R.S. 'Discovery II'. Altogether over a hundred stations have been taken by these 

 ships in the Bransfield Strait area. The soundings at these stations, mostly obtained 

 by use of the Lucas sounding machine, have been considerably augmented by over 

 1400 echo-soundings taken by the R.R.S. ' Discovery II '. Thus by combining all the 

 information at hand a fairly accurate bathymetrical chart can be drawn of this area ; it 



