246 KEPOET — 1891. 



Maury maintained that the conjunction will make the 

 climate of the South Polar area milder than that of the North. 

 His theory is that the saturated winds, being drawn up to great 

 heights within the Antarctic, must then be eased of their mois- 

 ture, and that simultaneously they must disengage vast quanti- 

 ties of latent heat ; and it is because more heat must be 

 liberated in this manner in the South Polar regions than in the 

 North that he infers a less severe climate for the Antarctic. 

 He estimates that the resultant relative differences between 

 the two polar climates will be greater than that between a 

 Canadian and an English winter (Maury's Meteorology, 

 p. 466). Eoss rejDorts that the South Polar summer is rather 

 colder than that of the North ; but still the southern winter may 

 be less extreme, and so the mean temperature may be higher. 

 If we examine the weather reports logged by Antarctic voyagers, 

 instead of the temperature merely, the advantage still seems 

 to rest with the south. In the first place, when the voyager 

 enters the Antarctic he sails out of a tempestuous zone into 

 one of calms. To demonstrate the truth of this statement, I 

 have made an abstract of Boss's log for the two months of 

 January and February, 1841, which he spent within the Antarctic 

 Circle. To enable every one to understand it, it may be well to 

 explain that the wind-force is registered in figures from 0, which 

 stands for a dead calm, up to 12, which represents a hurricane. 

 I find that during these sixty days it never once blew with the 

 force 8 — that is, a fresh gale ; only twice did it blow force 7,. 

 and then only for half a day each time. Force 5 to 6 — fresh 

 to strong breezes — is logged on twenty-one days. Force 1 to 3- 

 — that is, gentle breezes — prevailed on thirty-four days. The 

 mean wind-force registered under the entire sixty days was 

 3-43 — that is, only a four- to five-knot breeze. On thirty-eight 

 days blue sky was logged. They never had a single fog, and 

 on eleven days only was it even misty. On the other hand, 

 snow fell almost every second day. We find such entries as 

 these: " Beautifully clear weather," and " Atmosj)here so ex- 

 traordinarily clear that ]\Iount Herschel, distant ninety 

 miles, looked only thirty miles distant." And, again, "Land 

 seen one hundred and twenty miles distant ; sky beautifully 

 clear." Nor was this season exceptional, so far as we can tell, 

 for Dr. McCormack, of the " Erebus," in the third year of the 

 voyage, and after they had left the Antarctic for the third and 

 last time, enters in his diary the following remark: "It 

 is a curious thing that we have always met with the finest 

 weather within the Antarctic Circle ; clear, cloudless sky, bright 

 sun, light wind, and a long swell " (McCormack's " Antarctic 

 Voyage," vol. i., p. 345). It would seem as if the stormy wester- 

 lies, so familiar to all Australian visitors, had given to the 

 whole Southern Hemisphere a name for bad weather, which as 



