THE SOUTHERN OCEAN 21 



Of the 17 soundings taken by the Valdivia 

 on its voyage from Bouvet Island southward, 

 1 1 showed depths of from 2700 to 33 10 fathoms ; 

 only one was under 1 700 fathoms, and that was 

 in the immediate neighbourhood of Bouvet 

 Island. The work of the Valdivia showed that 

 the Southern Ocean to the south of a line from 

 South Africa to Kerguelen, instead of being a 

 comparatively shallow plain, was a basin of 

 abyssal depth. Moreover, the floor of this 

 basin in places, as between Enderby Land and 

 Kerguelen, is strongly folded, depths of 1300 

 fathoms alternating with depths of between 

 2000 and 3000 fathoms. As Dr. Schott showed 

 in his paper before the British Association in 

 1 899,* the shallow sea around Kerguelen Island, 

 MacDonald Island and Heard Island, is very 

 local, and instead of it extending southward to 

 Antarctica, it ends abruptly at the edge of a 

 steep slope down to a deep Antarctic basin. t 

 The work of the Valdivia alone 'has shown, 

 according to Dr. Mill,| that the mean depth of 

 the Southern Ocean is twice as great as 

 Karsten's estimate of 1894. Further, during 

 the voyage of the Valdivia northward across 

 the Indian Ocean, between the lines of sound- 

 ings made by the German cruiser the Gazelle 

 and by H.M.S. Egeria, it was found that at 



*Geog. Journ., Vol. XV. pp. 518-528. 1900. 



tThe greatest depth is 3134 fathoms, at 58 5' S., 35 54' E. 



JThe first volume of the Valdivia results, Geog. Journ., Vol. 

 XXI. pp. 312-313. 1903. 



For translation of Prof. Chun's official report see Geog. Journ. Vol. 

 xiii. 1899, pp. 640-50. 



