330 DISCOVERY REPORTS 



photographs from many parts of the group, more especially from Coronation Island, 

 the adjoining islands of Powell and Signy, the Inaccessible Islands and other outlying 

 and comparatively little-known rocks and islets. Throughout our visit exceptionally 

 large numbers of icebergs were encountered in the neighbourhood of the islands. Within 

 twenty miles of the southern shores at least 1500 were present in the early part of the 

 month, a considerable number of them being heavily concentrated around the southern 

 approaches to Lewthwaite and Washington Straits. Had the weather been continuously 

 thick they might well have constituted a serious obstacle to our movements and to the 

 rapid progress of the survey, but in the clear conditions that we experienced we suffered 

 but little inconvenience from them, although on occasion they lay so thickly across our 

 path as to cut out the southern horizon (see Plate XIV, fig. 3). 



Throughout the survey temperatures were high, rarely falling below 30° F. and rising 

 to a maximum of 52° F. in Borge Bay on January 17, the average temperature of that 

 day from midnight to midnight being 44-1° F. The average temperature throughout 

 the period of our visit was 33"9° F. 



The survey, under the direction of the late Commander W. M. Carey, R.N. (Retd.), 

 was carried out by Lieutenant A. L. Nelson, R.N.R., then Chief Officer and Navigator, 

 now Master, of the 'Discovery 11'. Lieutenant Nelson had already had experience in 

 work of this kind in other Dependencies of the Falkland Islands, and it is to his energy 

 and enthusiasm that such success as we achieved at the South Orkneys is primarily due. 

 In the exacting work of conning the vessel close inshore he had the co-operation of an 

 energetic executive staff, and the whole-hearted support of the ship's company. 



A large number of echo-soundings were taken and the working of the sounding 

 machines throughout owes much to the supervision of the Chief Engineer, Lieutenant- 

 Commander W. A. Horton, R.N. (Retd.) and his staff, and to the care bestowed on them 

 by the technical assistant, Mr R. S. Veitch, whose charge they were. Both sounding 

 machines, the shallow and the deep, worked reasonably well; the shallow one occasion- 

 ally broke down, but this is scarcely surprising since we were constantly sounding in 

 shallow water and it was subjected to exceptionally heavy use. We were never actually 

 unable to get soundings, however, since the deep machine, though less efficient in 

 very shallow water, could always be used. The soundings were carried out by the 

 scientific staff under Mr D. D. John and by the surgeon, Dr G. M. Gibbon. The 

 photographs which accompany this report are the work of the laboratory assistant, Mr 

 A. Saunders. 



The survey was completed in twenty-eight days, January 2-29. Of this period only 

 twelve days were actually employed in working round the main coasts of the group, the 

 remaining sixteen from time to time being spent at anchor, sometimes through stress of 

 weather, sometimes in order to make more detailed plans of certain of the harbours or 

 anchorages in which we took shelter. During the twelve days in question we ran along 

 and surveyed the coasts of the entire group and charted besides the multitude of smaller 

 islands, islets and rocks which form part of the group. Signy Island, because its coast 

 on the whole provides better anchorage than elsewhere, was surveyed on a larger scale 



