346 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909. 
All the minimum extremes occurred during the winter of 1903, 
ranging between —47° and —50°. The lowest figure was observed 
September 20, 1903, at 2 a. m., —50.2° C. On the other hand, the 
greatest extreme of summer never exceeded +3.8° to 5.5° C. (in De- 
cember) ; but this transitory maximum would give a false impression 
of the temperature of this “beautiful” season. In reality during 
the two years of winter quarters there were noted only five days of 
a mean higher than 0° C. and this did not exceed 1.5° C. The highest 
monthly mean eftectively observed was that of December, 1902, and 
this did not rise higher than —3.2°. Finally, if one sums up the 
summer months of 1902-3 and 1903-4 there is reached for the six 
months the incredible figure of —6.3°. 
On account of this low temperature there is no precipitation in 
the form of rain, but always of snow. This fact strongly impressed 
Mr. W. H. Dines as one difficult of explanation, unless it is due to 
the fact of the extraordinary dryness of the air and the intensity— 
unexpected in a region completely covered by ice—of the rate of 
evaporation. Otherwise the temperature during the summer would 
rise at least as far as the freezing point of water, as it does in the 
arctic regions, where the sunshine is, however, less brilhant. But 
ithe hygrometric observations show a relative humidity along the 
coast of Victoria Land comparable with the more arid regions of the 
globe. This aridity is accompanied during December with a very 
intense sunshine; it is, in fact, almost as strong as at Madras in June, 
and the extremes of temperature between sunset and sunrise are 
from 47° to 66° C. It is not rare, especially in December, to see the 
sun shine in a clear sky for several days. For a period of twelve 
consecutive days the sun has been known to shine with but a totality 
of five hours of cloudiness. Consecutively, all glacial surfaces soiled 
by dirt or near dark-colored rocks melt rapidly in the sun. In the 
southern part of Victoria Land there are frequently found beds 
of sand and gravel, the result of years of concentration, embedded 
in the cliffs, remnants of ancient glaciers. These beds of old ice, the 
last witnesses of a much greater glacial sheet, are in summer subject 
to very intense ablation, both by evaporation and by melting. Thus 
an immense solar radiation accompanies the very low temperatures 
of summer, a significant fact which throws some light upon the prob- 
lem of glacial epochs in this boreal hemisphere. 
One is struck, on the other hand, by this uniformity of the winter 
mean, which for a period of eight months was between —22° C. and 
—27°C. These low temperatures—and they are not extremely low— 
are maintained constantly at approximately the same figure. One 
would have expected effectively colder temperatures between July 
and September. The winter in the Arctic is, from this point of 
view, the most severe. The “ram noted uniformily, during a period 
