ANTARCTIC CLIMATE. 53 
Adare, 48°°9 F., occurred during a very heavy storm from the 
East-south-east, on January 23, 1900; but this is quite exceptional. 
The mean monthly temperature is above freezing-point during one 
month of the year, viz. January. 
The relatively high mean temperature for July is due to the 
number of gales from Kast-south-east and South-east during that 
month, the temperature invariably rising with these winds. The 
extreme range of temperature was 92° F., and the mean tempera- 
ture for the year + 7°°056 EF. (— 13°-9 C.), which compared to 
the mean annual temperature for the same northern latitude, is 
extremely low. The mean temperature for Lapland, in 71° N., is 
about 32° F., and the mean temperature for the north of Spits- 
bergen, which extends as far north as 82° N., is about 10° Fahr. 
The temperature of the sea during the greater part of the year, 
that is, while the surface of the sea is frozen over, remained constant 
at 27°-8 F. In the summer months, December, January and 
February, it rarely rose above 32° F. 
During the winter months, or at least during the seventy-one days 
that the sun remained constantly below the horizon, the diurnal 
variations of the- thermometer and barometer were scarcely per- 
ceptible, being almost, if not quite, concealed by the oscillations due 
to the passage of storms. 
The intensity of solar radiation was measured with the black- 
bulb thermometer iz vacuo. This instrument was freely exposed to 
the sun by fixing it horizontally above the ground at the same height 
as the thermometer screen, viz. 4 feet 6 inches. 
A temperature above 80° F. was frequently recorded by this 
thermometer, while the temperature in the shade remained below 
freezing-point. These high readings were probably due to the hygro- 
metric conditions of the atmosphere, the air, on account of the intense 
cold, being extremely dry. 
Table IV. gives some of the highest readings with the solar 
radiation thermometer and the temperature of air in the shade ob- 
served at the same time. 
The most remarkable feature in the meteorological conditions of 
the Antarctic is the wind. The prevailing East-south-east and South- 
east winds at Cape Adare, which is within the area of abnormally 
low pressure, tend to prove the existence of a great anticyclone 
stretching over the Polar area, which in its turn necessarily implies 
the existence of upper currents from the Northward, blowing towards 
and in upon the Polar regions to make good the drain caused by the 
surface outblowing South-easterly winds. The frequency gnd force of 
