344 DISCOVERY REPORTS 



above evidence Herdman concluded that there was a strong probabiHty of a connection 

 between the South Orkneys and the South Sandwich group, but expressed the hope 

 that more soundings would be obtained in this area in the near future. Some, although 

 not enough, have been obtained. In late November 1932, while following a somewhat 

 irregular easterly course along the ice-edge between the South Orkneys and Southern 

 Thule, we took many soundings both on and off the ridge until we were finally forced 

 off it into deeper water by a northerly trend of the pack-ice in 32° W. These recent ob- 

 servations, while fully bearing out Herdman 's conclusions and emphasizing further the 

 sharply defined character of the submarine connection, suggest the interesting possi- 

 bility that a gap may occur in it approximately between 33° and 34° W. The existence of 

 this gap was first suggested in 1933 by Wiist,^ who based his conclusion on the fact that 

 there is cold bottom water in the Scotia Sea which must come from the Weddell Sea. 

 Wiist places his gap approximately betw'een 33° and 35° W, and assigns to it a "saddle 

 depth" of about 2750 m.; but while our soundings favour its existence they are as yet 

 far too few upon which to form any more definite conclusion. 



CLIMATE 



For the last thirty years or more a continuous meteorological record has been kept on 

 Laurie Island, and the climate of the South Orkneys is thus known with greater pre- 

 cision and in more detail than that of any other part of Antarctica. In the 'Scotia' 

 reports and in the Annals of the Argentine Meteorological Office,^ in the London Meteoro- 

 logical Magazine, and in other journals, and in such generalized works on polar problems 

 as Rudmose Brown's The Polar Regions, a considerable mass of meteorological literature 

 has accumulated dealing with the South Orkneys. Much of this information, based on 

 the data collected between 1903 and 1925, has been summarized in the first edition of 

 The Antarctic Pilot, 1930, pp. 55-6, and 165, and on this and on Mossman's valuable 

 monograph in the ' Scotia' reports,^ and Rudmose Brown's The Polar Regions, the fol- 

 lowing somewhat condensed account of the climate of the South Orkneys is largely 

 based. 



In view of their geographical position, set in the open sea far from any considerable 

 land mass yet intimately associated with a vast reservoir of ice to the southward and not 

 altogether beyond the influence of a warmer westerly drift to the north, the climate 

 of the South Orkneys may vary greatly in character from season to season, and some- 

 times from year to year. It is essentially a complex one. From about the middle of 

 November — the last spring month — until early April — the middle autumn month — the 

 climate is definitely oceanic, for then the islands are partially or entirely surrounded by 

 open water, and the chilling, potentially continental influence of the Weddell Sea pack-ice 



1 Wiist, G., 1933, Schichtiing mid Zirkulation des Atlantischen Ozeans. Das Bodemvasser ttnd die Gliederung 

 der Atlantischen Tiefsee, Wiss. Ergebn. d. Deutsch. Atlant. Exp. 'Meteor', 1925-7, vi, part i, pp. 44-5, 

 plate ii (Berlin and Leipzig). 



2 Vols. XVI, xvn, Buenos Aires, 1905, 1912. 



* Mossman, R. C, 1907, Meteorology, Scientific Results of the 'Scotia' 1902-4, 11, part i, pp. 1-306. 



