256 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION [August 



breeze is drifting it along, giving a very strange yet beautiful 

 effect in the north, where the strong red twilight filters through 

 the haze. 



The Crozier Party tell a good story of Bowers, who on 

 their return journey with their recovered tent fitted what he 

 called a ' tent dov^nhaul ' and secured it round his sleeping- 

 bag and himself. If the tent went again, he determined to go 

 with it. 



Our lecture programme has been renewed. Last night Simp- 

 son gave a capital lecture on general meteorology. Lie started 

 on the general question of insolation, giving various tables to 

 show proportion of sun's heat received at the polar and equa- 

 torial regions. Broadly, in latitude 80° one would expect about 

 22 per cent, of the heat received at a spot on the equator. 



He dealt with the temperature question by showing inter- 

 esting tabular comparisons between northern and southern tem- 

 peratures at given latitudes. So far as these tables go they 

 show the South Polar summer to be 15° colder than the North 

 Polar, but the South Polar winter 3° warmer than the North 

 Polar, but of course this last figure would be completely altered 

 if the observer were to winter on the Barrier. I fancy Amundsen 

 will not concede those 3° ! ! 



From temperatures our lecturer turned to pressures and the 

 upward turn of the gradient in high southern latitudes, as shown 

 by the Discovery Expedition. This bears of course on the theory 

 which places an anticyclone in the South Polar region. Lockyer's 

 theories came under discussion; a good many facts appear to 

 support them. The westerly winds of the Roaring Forties are 

 generally understood to be a succession of cyclones. Lockyer's 

 hypothesis supposes that there are some eight or ten cyclones 

 continually revolving at a rate of about 10° of longitude a day, 

 and he imagines them to extend from the 40th parallel to beyond 

 the 60th, thus giving the strong westerly winds in the forties and 

 easterly and southerly in 60° to 70°. Beyond 70° there appears 

 to be generally an irregular outpouring of cold air from the 

 polar area, with an easterly component significant of anticyclone 

 conditions. 



Simpson evolved a new blizzard theory on this. He sup- 

 poses the surface air intensely cooled over the continental and 

 Barrier areas, and the edge of this cold region lapped by 



