August 22. 19 18] 



NATURE 



487 



THE DRIFT OF THE "ENDURANCE." 



OWING to the circumstances of the time, the 

 preparation of the preUminary reports by 

 the men of science attached to the Weddell Sea 

 contingent of the Shackleton Expedition has been 

 unavoidably retarded, that of Lieut. Wordie, deal- 

 ing- with the oceanography, being the first to 

 appear.! It jg ^ report of great interest, and that 

 so much valuable research was accomplished on 

 a vessel specially equipped to meet the require- 

 ments of a land expedition reflects much credit on 

 all concerned. 



Sir Ernest Shackleton, meeting with extremely 

 unfavourable ice conditions in Weddell Sea during 

 the summer of 191 4-1 5, was unable to establish 

 the contemplated base on Luitpold Land for his 

 trans-Antarctic sledge journey. After a long 

 struggle with pack, the Endurance was beset in 

 the middle of January, 191 5, when only fifteen 

 miles from the land, in lat. 76^° S. A strong 

 N.H. wind that had blown for several days with 

 gale force packed the ice tightly, so that, in spite 

 of every effort, no pf ogress coulJ be made. A 

 month later the young ice was 6 in. thick, and 

 by the end of February, which corresponds with the 

 month of August in the northern hemisphere, had 

 increased to the thickness of a foot. 



During the drift of the vessel until she was 

 crushed on October 27, the natural history of sea 

 ice was studied and other physical observations 

 made. These included meteorological observa- 

 tions every four hours by Mr. Hussey, absolute 

 magnetic determinations at regular Intervals by 

 Mr. R. W. James, while frequent soundings and 

 numerous series of ocean temperatures and densi- 

 ties were made by Lieut. Wordie. Systematic col- 

 lections of plankton and other biological material 

 from the surface to depths of more than 400 

 fathoms were made by Mr. Clark, the biologist, 

 but, unfortunately, this rich material so labori- 

 ously brought together had to be abandoned when 

 the Endurance was crushed. The greatest interest 

 attaches to the soundings, which show that a 

 line of relatively deep water runs south from 74° 

 to 76° S. to the Wilhelm Barrier. Ofl^ the Lult- 

 p)old coast to the east there is shallow water less 

 than 100 fathoms deep, while in a westerly direc- 

 tion the edge of the continental shelf Is marked 

 by depths under 250 fathoms. 



The drift of the vessel lay over the continental 

 shelf from the end of March until the end of July, 

 so that it was possible to investigate it over a 

 length of 270 miles from S.E. to N.W. As the 

 ship drifted to and fro the breadth of the shelf 

 was shown to vary from forty miles in the S.E. 

 to seventy miles in the N.W. No idea as to the 

 distance of the coast could be obtained, as the 

 water did not shallow gradually In any direction. 

 " The shelf ... Is made up of a group of terrace- 

 like levels the edges of which are steep and 

 nearly parallel to each other along a S.W.-N.E. 

 line." The shallow water ends abruptly a little 



1 Lieut. J. M. Wordie, R.F.A., "The Drift ot the Endurance 

 Geographical Journal, vol. li., No. 4, April, iqi8. 



NO. 2547, VOL. lOl] 



north of lat. 73^° S., long. 48° W\, the ship's 

 position on July 31. A sounding made five days 

 later, when a gale from the S. h^ad driven the 

 Endurance into lat. 71° 42' S., long. 49° 21' W., 

 gave 1 146 fathoms. 



This sharply defined margin of the .so-called 

 "continental" shelf seems to be characteristic of 

 Antarctic areas, as shown by pairi, of soundings 

 a few miles apart on the Belgica, Gatiss, and 

 Scotia operating in widely separated regions. 

 Until the Endurance sank, six other casts were 

 made In depths between 1500 and 1900 fathoms, 

 so that the land to the east in lat. 68° S., reported 

 by Morrell in 1823, must, if it exists, be an island, 

 and not a part of Antarctica proper. Sir James 

 Ross had reported a "strong appearance of land " 

 some 5° due north of the position given by Morrell 

 for his land, so that it is not improbable that in 

 the unexplored area 165 miles broad at the nar- 

 rowest point lying between the tracks of Shackle- 

 ton and Filchner there may be a large island 

 or a cluster of small ones, as suggested by Ross. 

 There seems little doubt that Morrell did visit 

 Weddell Sea in 1823, and that the land he saw and 

 coasted along to its north cape was the east coast 

 of Graham Land previously reported by Capt. 

 Johnson and explored by Larsen seventy years 

 after Morrell's visit. In 1823, as show-n by Capt. 

 Weddell's voyage a few weeks earlier, the sea 

 south of the circle was free of pack, so that 

 an approach from the east to the normally ice- 

 congested waters off the coast of Graham Land 

 was quite a feasible proposition. Morrell's longi- 

 tudes were, however, some 10° out, owing to ah 

 error In his chronometers, so that his most 

 southerly position on March 14, 1823, would co- 

 incide with that of the Endurance on August 25, 

 1 91 5. The land reported on March 17 was evi- 

 dently the southern point of Foyn coast, as deter- 

 mined by Larsen, while the N. cape of New South 

 Greenland, which Morrell by dead reckoning two 

 days later placed in lat. 62° 41^ S., long. 47° 21' 

 W., was obviously the north point of Jolnville 

 Island, 8° of longitude further to the west than 

 the position assigned by him. 



Lieut. Wordie 's paper contains much interesting 

 matter, to which full justice cannot be done until 

 j the physicist and the meteorologist of the expedi- 

 tion have submitted their reports. A special feature 

 ! of the Weddell Sea winter climate in high latl- 

 i tudes seems to be the absence of low tempera- 

 tures. In the w^Inter months of 1912 the absolute 

 minima on the Deutschland were but little lower 

 than those at the S. Orkneys, some 500 miles 

 to the north, and in 191 5, the coldest winter of 

 the coldest and calmest year on record at this 

 island station, mercury never froze on the Endur- 

 ance, although the vessel was from 550 to 800 

 miles farther south. Meanwhile, It is not possible 

 to say why this should be so. Above the cold 

 surface cap, Barkow has shown that a relatively 

 warm stratum of '\it Is usually present in winter, 

 which under certain conditions might replace the 

 film of cold air lying over the pack ice. It is not 

 unlikely that the seasonal march of temperature in 



