ANTARCTIC ADVENTURE AND RESEARCH 



gards data we have lengthy records from the South 

 Orkneys (6i° S.) where a station was founded by 

 Bruce in 1903 and has been maintained since by the 

 A^orentine Government. Within the Antarctic realm 



o 



the longest records come from MacMurdo Sound, 

 where so many expeditions have now wintered. Cape 

 Adare and Adelie Land each have two years of records. 

 Near Gaussberg we have Drygalski's and Wild's rec- 

 ords and near Framheim, Amundsen's and Byrd's. 

 The Weddell Sea has a number of records mostly kept 

 on shipboard except for those associated with the 

 Swedish expedition. The weather in the seas and 

 coasts west of Graham Land has also been recorded, 

 with intervals, over a number of years. (These are 

 shown in Figure 34.) For the vast bulk of Antarctica 

 we have no records. 



We may perhaps commence the discussion of the 

 South Polar climate by considering what a polar cli- 

 mate means, and whether the Antarctic climate is as 

 severe as that of the Arctic. There are a number of 

 criteria which may be considered as defining a polar 

 climate. They are more often considered in the north- 

 ern realm than in the southern. For instance, in Arctic 

 regions one good standard is the absence of any real 

 free grozvth. Since there is not only no tree growth, 

 but also no growth of any thing higher than a moss 

 in Antarctica, it is clear that we cannot usefully employ 

 this criterion in the south. Mecking ^ has devised a 

 formula which considers the warmest and coldest 

 months at a locality in determining if it has a polar 



1 Geography of Polar Regions, p. 72, New York, 1928. 



178 



