232 DISCOVERY REPORTS 



The lines of echo soundings taken by the ' Discovery II ' round the South Shetlands 

 and in the Bransfield Strait were all run between December 19, 1930 and March 10, 

 1931. Altogether 12 days were occupied in taking 1432 echo soundings, which is a 

 considerable advance on the number of wire soundings which could be taken in the 

 same period. Only on one line, from Deception Island to the South Orkneys via Clarence 

 Island, was it necessary to abandon echo soundings on account of weather conditions. 

 Here we were forced to give up sounding over a distance of 70 miles by a north-west gale 

 and a very lumpy sea, which made it impossible to manoeuvre the ship without causing 

 excessive water noises in the hydrophone. 



BELLINGSHAUSEN SEA 

 (Chart 7) 



Until the season 1 930-1 very few soundings had been recorded from the Bellings- 

 hausen Sea. Late in December 1930, the 'Discovery 11' left Deception Island in an 

 attempt to push as far south and west as possible. As will be seen from the sounding 

 chart (No. 7) the trend of Graham Land was followed as far down as Adelaide Island. 

 Here very heavy pack-ice was encountered and the ship had to strike north again for some 

 considerable distance before further progress to the west was possible. From this time 

 until the return to Adelaide Island some 12 days later the ship was either in pack-ice or 

 skirting the edge of it. Several attempts were made to get south, but owing to the very 

 heavy ice year it was not possible to get beyond 69° 49' S in approximately 101° W. This 

 was reached on January 6, 1931, and the echo sounding was 4131 m., about 100 m. less 

 than the average depth for that part of the Bellingshausen Sea. It was in this vicinity 

 that members of Cook's expedition were deceived by an appearance of land in January 

 1774. Forster, writing on Cook's voyage in the 'Resolution', says "we were amused 

 with the appearance of land, for after standing on towards it for some hours, it vanished 

 in clouds". Cook's position was then about 68° S and he stood on to 71° 10' S without 

 sighting land. In February 1930, the 'William Scoresby' obtained Lucas soundings of 

 574, 584 and 580 m., with a bottom of yellow mud farther to the east. These positions 

 are about 120 miles west of Charcot Island, which is the nearest known land. 



On the return passage of the ' Discovery II ' from 101° W, it was found that although 

 some of the pack had moved away to the north-east it was still not possible to reach 

 Peter 1st Island, and we passed about 25 miles to the north of it. The soundings here 

 showed little change from the average for this part, that taken nearest the island being 

 3981 m. 



The average depth of the ocean bed in the Bellingshausen Sea varies very little. The 

 general information gained from our soundings being that the depth lies approximately 

 between 3900 and 4400 m., the maximum found by the ' Discovery II ' being 4598 m. in 

 about 68° 05' S, 98° 20' W. In the area over which our soundings were taken, the greater 

 depths lie to the north and west of Peter 1st Island. 



On our return we were able to reach Adelaide Island and three hues of soundings 



