348 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909. 
for 70° south are too low, much more so for 78° south; and Mr. R. H. 
Curtis, who discusses the observations, agrees with Mr. Shaw in 
thinking that at the South Pole or in its vicinity there exists without 
doubt an anticyclonal area in accordance with a pole of cold, com- 
parable to that of Siberia, and on the circumference of which is 
developed a regular circulation of east winds. 
It is indeed principally from the East that the wind blows into 
MacMurdo Sound, then from east-northeast and from the northeast. 
In correlation with this dominant direction of the wind the ocean 
currents in front of the Barrier are also directed from east to west. 
The winds from the north and southeast are less frequent; those from 
the south are rare, but the notable fact is the complete absence of 
west winds. The layer of air submitted to this régime is thin and 
scarcely exceeds 2,000 meters in thickness; the higher clouds and the 
smoke of Erebus showed in the higher atmospheric layers (about 
4,000 meters) a direction of the wind diametrically opposite, that is, 
‘from west and southwest. On his excursion into the inland ice of 
Victoria Land, Captain Scott observed also that the east winds are at 
those heights replaced by west and southwest winds. It is a question 
what becomes of the masses of air rapidly brought in by the east wind, 
which scarcely goes beyond the mountainous edge of Victoria Land, 
and to what is due the absolute lack of the usual West winds on the 
inland-ice. Scott does not attempt to explain the ever-warm charac- 
ter of the south winds. We should be inclined to see in it the effect of 
a phenomenon of foehn sprung from winds which take their origin 
on the plateaus of the inland ice and the direction of which was 
probably originally southwest, but which underwent in consequence 
of their whirling movement a deviation of such nature as to trans- 
form them into south-north wind. 
The wind has an extraordinary tendency to blow in squalls and 
on the other hand quickly dies down toa calm. In spite of the dra- 
matic descriptions of the storms which exposed the expedition to 
such danger and ills, and which so obscured the atmosphere that two 
officers were lost within 30 meters of the ship, Mr. Curtis is not im- 
pressed by the extreme swiftness of the wind, which amounts to only 
16 to 17 kilometers an hour. It is much less than at Valencia (Ire- 
land) or on the Scilly Isles, where it reaches 25 kilometers. In spite 
of the long duration of certain storms the greater part of them are 
short. (There were 23 in 1902, and 33 in 1903.) They are especially 
frequent in winter and autumn, and have a tendency to dislocate the 
pack ice of MacMurdo Sound very early. To conclude, they are less 
frequent and less terrible than on the west coast of Great Britain. 
But the squalls are so furious and the driving snow which accom- 
panies them so painful, that one is naturally tempted, according to 
Mr. Curtis, to exaggerate their force. In the course of these storms 
