Mat 28, 1920] 



SCIENCE 



545 



navigators was all that enabled them to make 

 the journey, while they were exhausted by the 

 necessity of bailing the boat continuously for 

 days, to keep her from swamping under pour- 

 ing sprays and whelming waves. 



Four relief expeditions were necessary 

 under Shackleton before the party on Ele- 

 phant Island were rescued. Through the 

 energy and direction of Frank Wild, the 

 marooned party of 22 men lived through four 

 and a half months of winter in huts with 

 stone walls, and boat-covered, as had been 

 done by the Greely Arctic Expedition at Cape 

 Sabibe in the winter of 1883-1884. 



At Elephant Island the food supply was 

 limited almost to a starvation point, though 

 their regular food was supplemented by pen- 

 guins, seals, seaweed and sea-limpets. While 

 the Weddell Sea scientific observations have 

 not been published some items of interest are 

 given in this narrative. In 77° S. 34° W. the 

 magnetic variation was found to be six 

 degrees west; auroras were rare. Meteoro- 

 logically clear sky increased steadily from 7 

 per cent, in January to 45.7 in July; it 

 decreased to below 30 from September to 

 November and nearly to zero in December. 

 Temperatures were fairly high, the minimimi 

 for the year being 35 degrees below zero in 

 July. Generally southerly winds brought 

 clear weather with low temperatures, while 

 the reverse conditions obtained with northerly 

 winds. The ice-drift, due partly to currents 

 but more largely to winds of Weddell Sea, is 

 contrary to the movements of the hands of 

 a watch. Doubtless it conforms almost en- 

 tirely to a course nearly parallel to the gen- 

 eral contours of the land masses of Ant- 

 arctica. Geographically the only direct con- 

 tribution is the connection of Coats Land and 

 Luitpold Land, which determines the con- 

 tinuity of the continent of Antarctica from 

 6 to 43 degrees west longitude, and from 72.5 

 to 78 degrees south latitude. The North 

 Greenland of Morrell disappeared long since 

 from charts, but the reviewer's belief, in his 

 Hand-Book of Polar Discoveries, that Mor- 

 rell's longitudes were to blame would throw 

 this land some 12 degrees west to Palmer 



or Graham Land. Astronomical observations 

 proved that Shackleton's chronometer longi- 

 tudes were one degree in error. Again he 

 throws Foyn coast two degrees to the west of 

 its reported position, and states that his ob- 

 servations place Sanders Island three miles 

 east and five miles north of its charted posi- 

 tion. These corrections indicate clearly the 

 liability of explorers, imless highly skilled, 

 to material errors when making observations 

 under abnormal and difficult conditions. 

 Hydrographically Weddell Sea is very deep, 

 averaging in the large over 2,000 fathoms. 

 Shackleton mentions three soundings of 2,400, 

 2,810 and 2,819 fathoms. He mentions the 

 shoaling of the sea as he drifted "north 

 either to east or west, from 77° S., and the 

 fact suggested that the contour lines ran east 

 and west roughly." The reviewer thinks that 

 this indicates the existence of a continental 

 shelf, off land trending westerly along the 

 77th parallel, and changing to north-north- 

 west between longitudes 55° and 60° west. 



The summary of Lieutenant Clark on the 

 whaling industry of the Dependencies of the 

 Falkland Islands is of special interest. The 

 total value of the fisheries, in pounds sterling, 

 were: 1913, 1,252,342; 1914, 1,300,978; 1915, 

 1,333,401 and in 1916, 1,774,570. In 1916 

 11,860 whales were captured in this area. 

 The industry is now dependent on large fin 

 and blue whales, humpbacks having been 

 largely reduced in numbers. 



The Ross Sea story is one of heroic effort 

 not unmixed with disaster. The Aurora, Cap- 

 tain Mackintosh, left Hobart in December, 



1914, and reached Cape Evans January 16, 



1915, and after preliminary movements went 

 into winter-quarters. While Mackintosh was 

 absent, and all stores for the expedition not 

 yet landed, the Aurora was forced by a violent 

 blizzard into the pack on May 6, 1915, and 

 drifting north was not able to clear the pack 

 until March 14, 1916, in 62° 28' S., 158° W. 

 The marooned party, ten men only, by heroic 

 effort, succeeded in establishing, as planned, 

 a supply depot for the party which was ex- 

 pected to cross Antarctica from Weddell Sea. 

 This depot was laid down at the base of Mt. 



