POSITION AND LIMITS. 3 



Pacific as far south as 56° S. latitude. As a matter of fact, 

 theretore, the waters unite in one universal ocean, and 

 their separation south of the Antarctic circle is in itself 

 purely arbitrary. Nevertheless, it is quite allowable to 

 retain the notion of a separate polar sea, if we thereby 

 indicate the physical characteristics of the south polar 

 regions. If now we define the southern polar sea cb il. 

 region which is reached by floating ice-floes, and th< 

 Antarctic countries as the countries lying within this 

 zone, we secure a working limit. Approximately it tallies 

 with 59° or 60 S. latitude, although in the Atlantic it is 

 somewhat lower, including, as it does, the islands and 

 island groups of South Georgia, the South Sandwich and 

 the Bouvet Islands. As undoubted Antarctic countries 

 three regions are encountered, of which the first may 

 include the islands and perhaps mainland lying to the 

 south of the South American continent— the Dirk- 

 Gerritz Archipelago with Graham's Land, Alexander 

 Land, and Peter I. Island far away to the west. The 

 most advanced station to the north and east is occupied 

 by the South Orkney Islands in latitude 6i° S. and 

 longitude 45° W., in a latitude approaching that of 

 Bergen or the northernmost Shetland Isles in the north- 

 ern hemisphere, and somewhat west of the meridian of 

 Rio de Janeiro, and of Cape Farewell, the southern ex- 

 tremity of Greenland. The southernmost point therefore 

 of the north polar lands and the corresponding northern- 

 most point of the south polar lands lie on the same 

 meridian of longitude. These countries are washed on 

 the east by the South Atlantic, and these waters received 

 the name of George IV. Sea from their discoverer Weddell. 

 The present author elsewhere proposes the name of 

 Weddell Sea instead. Towards the north the land forms 

 a southern boundary of the waters uniting the Atlantic to 

 the Pacific, so that compared with the complete union of 

 the Atlantic and Indian Oceans on the one hand, and of 



