PREVIOUS WORK. 209 



depression, by the high and uniform temperature, by the great humidity and by 



the cloud and precipitation which were greater during storms than at any other 



time.'* 



This last conckision of Meinardus's does not fit in with Lockyer's scheme at all. A 



storm, the centre of which passes near to 66° S., is nearly 6° out of the path assigned by 



Lockyer, in fact the centre is very near where Lockyer places the southern extremities of 



his cyclones. 



We will now pass on to consider the conditions in the Ross Sea area as found by the 

 observations during 1911 and then return with the knowledge gained to reconsider these more 

 general questions. Before doing so, however, it will be interesting to see what we may expect 

 according to the ideas of Hepwortb, Lockyer and Meinardus. 

 Hepworth writes : 



' It seems probable that areas of low pressure, on their passage eastwards north of 

 Victoria Land, after passing the meridian of Cape Adare, not infrequently take 

 a more southerly path, striking south-eastward and penetrating into or skirting the 

 Ross Sea.'t 

 Meinardus writes : 

 ' In the Ross Sea the development of an independent depression is weaker (than in 

 the Weddel Sea) on account of the extensive high land in the west, the small 

 width of the Sea, and finally the proximity of the Antarctic anticyclone. Depres- 

 sions which penetrate the Ross Sea come therefore almost entirely from the north 

 and never from the west.'J 

 Writing of Cape Adare Lockyer says : 

 ' The meteorological conditions noted at this station favour, then, the suggestion that 

 a series of low depressions travel in higher latitudes eastwards, their lowest portions 

 only traversing the Cape Adare quarters.'§ 

 But he also says that the observations made in McMurdo Sound 

 ' are in conformity with the assumption that the southern extremities of low pressure 

 areas pass over the stations, and the absence of westerly winds proves that the 

 centres of these systems always lie to the northward of these stations.'!] 

 It is difficult to understand how the lower or southern extremities of the same cyclones can 

 be at Cape Adare and also in McMurdo Sound, considering that the latter station is 400 

 miles further south than the former. After a description of a typical Antarctic blizzard in 

 McMurdo Sound Lockyer says : 



' This experience convinces one that the air movement in these storms 



is only part of a series of very large systems travelling eastward. '^ 

 A depression with its centre in 60" S.,able to produce a blizzard of 40 to 60 miles an hour 

 in 78'^ S., is of course quite inconceivable. Whatever blizzards may be due to they are cer- 

 tainly not part of the circulation around a cyclone the centre of which is more than a 

 thousand miles away. 



* Deut die Sudpolar-Expedition, 1901-03, p. 295. 



f National Antarctic Expedition, 1901-04. Meteorology, Part 1, p. 429. 



t Deutsche Siidpolar-Expedition, 1901-03, p. 338. 



§ Southern Hemisphere Surface Air Circulation, p. 73. 



II Ibid, p. 87. 



Tl Ibid, p. 88. 



27 



