PKESIDENTIAL ADDRESS — SECTION E. 24S 



plants and animals were able to live and multiply in latitudes 

 that to-day are barren. "What has undoubtedly occurred in 

 the extreme north is equally possible in the extreme south. 

 But if it did occur — if South Polar lands, now ice-bound, were 

 then as prolific of life as Disco and Spitzbergen once were — 

 then, like Spitzbergen and Disco, the unsubmerged remnants 

 of this continent may still retain organic evidences of the fact 

 in the shape of fossil-bearing beds, and the discovery of such 

 deposits would confirm or confute such speculations as these. 

 The key to the geological problem lies within the Antarctic 

 Circle, and to find it would be to recover some of the past 

 history of the Southern Hemisphere. There is no reason to 

 despair of discovering such evidence, as the late Dr. McCor- 

 mack, in his account of Eoss's voyage, records that portions of 

 Victoria Land were free from snow, and therefore available for 

 investigation ; besides which, their surface may still support 

 some living forms, for they cannot be colder or bleaker than 

 the peaks which rise out of the continental ice of North 

 Greenland, and these, long held to be sterile, have recently 

 disclosed the existence upon them of a rich though humble flora. 

 We have now to consider some important meteorological 

 questions. If we look at the distribution of the atmosphere 

 around the globe we shall see that it is spread unequally. It 

 forms a stratum which is deeper within the tropics than about 

 the Poles and over the Northern than over the Southern Hemi- 

 sphere, so that the barometer normals fall more as we approach 

 the Antarctic than they do when we near the Arctic. Maury, 

 taking the known isobars as his guide, has calculated that the 

 mean pressure at the North Pole is 29-1°, but that it is only 

 28° at the South (Maury's Meteorology, p. 259). In other 

 words, the Antarctic Circle is permanently much barer of at- 

 mosphere than any other part of the globe. Again, if we con- 

 sult a wind-chart we shall see that both Poles are marked as 

 calm areas. Each is the dead centre of a perpetual wind- 

 vortex, but the South Polar indraught is the stronger. Polar- 

 ward winds blow across the 45th degree of north latitude for 

 189 days in the year, but across the 45th degree of south loititude 

 for 209 days. And while they are drawn in to the North 

 Pole from over a disc-shaped area 5,500 miles in diameter, the 

 South Polar indraught is felt throughout an area 7,000 miles 

 across. Lastly, the winds which circulate about the South 

 Pole are more heavily charged with moisture than are the 

 winds of corresponding parts of the other hemisphere. Now, 

 the extreme degree in which these three conditions of a per- 

 petual grand cyclone, a moist atmosphere, and a low barometer 

 co-operate without the Antarctic ought to produce within it an 

 exceptional meteorological state ; and the point to be deter- 

 mined is, what that condition may be. 



