THE ANTARCTIC REGIONS. 279 



part of condensers) that the steady flow of ' brave ' 

 winds towards the South Pole is to be ascribed. c Moun- 

 tain masses,' he says, c appear to perform in the cham- 

 bers of the upper air the office which the jet of cold 

 water discharges for the exhausted steam in the con- 

 denser of an engine. The presence of land, therefore, 

 not water, about this south polar stopping-place is 

 suggested.' And he attaches considerable weight, in 

 this connection, to the circumstance that the barometric 

 pressure is singularly low over the whole Antarctic 

 Ocean,* as though there were here the vortex of a 

 mighty but steady whirlwind. c We may contemplate 

 the whole system of " brave west winds," circulating in 

 the Antarctic regions, in the light of an everlasting 

 cyclone on a gigantic scale the Antarctic continent in 

 its vortex about which the wind in the great atmo- 

 spherical ocean all round the world, from the pole to 

 the edge of the calm belt of Capricorn, is revolving in 

 spiral curves, continually going with the hands of a 

 watch, and twisting from right to left.' However, it 

 would be unsafe to base the theory of an Antarctic con- 

 tinent on speculations such as these. And still less 



* This curious circumstance cannot be explained, as Maury supposes, 

 by the existence of upflowing currents of air, however occasioned. The 

 total pressure of the air over any region is not affected by motions 

 taking place within the air, any more than the total pressure of water 

 upon the bottom of a tank is affected by motions taking place in the 

 water. There are reasons for believing that the true explanation of the 

 low Antarctic barometer lies in the fact that the ocean surface is in 

 Antarctic regions above, and in Arctic regions below, the mean level. 

 The excess of ocean surface in the southern hemisphere indicates an 

 overflow, as it were, of water southwards, which must lead to such a 

 relation. See my ' Light Science for Leisure Hours,' Second Series. 



