HISTORY OF THE ISLANDS 291 



he reveals an undoubted interest in oceanography: "We sounded, and found no bottom 

 at 195 fathoms. At the time of sounding, I attached my apparatus to the deep-sea lead- 

 line, in order to ascertain the temperature of the sea, which, on taking up, I found to be 

 34° at that depth, while on the surface it was but 32°, and the temperature of the air 38° : 

 the barometer stood at 29-54." This is probably one of the eadiest references to the 

 warm deep current with which we are now so familiar in the Antarctic, and it is ex- 

 tremely interesting to note that the editor of Powell's Notes, referring to the above 

 phenomenon in a footnote on p. 4, says : " In the Sea of Spitzbergen, in the north, as in 

 the Antarctic Ocean, in the south, the temperature of the sea-water increases with the 

 depth ; so that, when the thermometer at the surface stood at 32° or 33°, at 300 fathoms 

 it was 36° or 37°." He goes on to point out that in confined seas in the north, discon- 

 nected with the warmer oceanic waters, the temperature was generally found to decrease 

 with the depth. Moreover, for a sealer Powell kept a creditable meteorological log, 

 noting the air temperature, barometric pressure, and surface temperature of the sea at 

 noon and midnight. 



His description of Bridgeman Island, an island then (December 1821) actively 

 volcanic but now quite cold, apart from its considerable geological interest is well 

 worth quoting if merely for the sake of showing what a careful observer he was. 



This island is volcanic; for when it bore S. by W., by compass, and distance 9 miles, it appeared 

 to emit smoke from five craters; but, when it bore N.N.E., and distance one mile and a half, I could 

 plainly see it was but one crater, of immense width, from which the smoke issued in dark volumes: 

 after passing from this crater, the smoke branched off into the different columns of the rocks, and 

 ascended upwards; it was this circumstance that gave it the appearance of five craters in a S. by W. 

 direction. Bridgman's Island is about 200 feet high, and about four miles in circumference: the 

 crater is situated on the west-side of the island, and is about 80 or 90 feet from the surface of the 

 sea: the whole of the island assumes the appearance of burnt bricks :i the S.W. point is low, and was 

 covered with penguins. 



Powell's attitude to his new discovery, far from being merely commercial, appears to 

 have been rather that of a geographer. It should be recalled that the South Orkneys 

 were discovered at a time when it was still uncertain whether the South Sandwich 

 Islands were in fact islands or a northerly projection of a continental mass;^ for, 

 although Bellingshausen had already proved the insularity of Cook's " Sandwich Land " 

 in December 1819,'^ this fact had not been published at the time of the discovery of the 

 new group .^ One of the chief problems which confronted the explorers and exploring 

 sealers of this period was to establish whether the land discovered by Smith in February 

 1819 (the South Shetlands) was or was not continuous to the eastward with " Sandwich 



^ Charcot, cited on p. 59 of The Antarctic Pilot, ist ed., 1930 (London), describes this island as being 

 tinted by brick-red tufa. The French expedition under Dr Jean Charcot landed on Bridgeman Island in 

 December 1909, but failed to find the slightest trace of volcanic activity. 



- See Kemp, S., and Nelson, A. L., 1931, T/ie South Sandwich Islands, Discovery Reports, in, p. 139. 



3 See Mill, H. R., 1905, The Siege of the South Pole, p. 129 (London). 



