SOUTH 
tervals of the genei-al routine of expedition work, and simultaneously 
Mvith otlier studies on the general life of this interesting sub-Antarctic 
island. Visits were made to six of the seven existing stations, 
observations were made on the whales landed, and useful insight was 
gathered as to the general working of the industry. 
From South Georgia the traek of the Endurance lay in a direct 
line to the South Sandwich Group, between Saunders and Candlemas 
Islands. Then south-easterly and southerly courses were steered to 
the Coats' Land barrier, along which we steamed for a few hundred 
miles until forced westward, when we were unfortunately held up in 
about lat. 76° 34' S. and long, 37^ 30' W. on January 19, 1915, by 
enormous masses of heavy pack-ice. The ship drifted to lat. 76° 59' S., 
long. 37°47' W. on March 19, 1915, and then west and north until 
crushed in lat. 69° 5' S. and long. 51° 30' W. on October 26, 1915. 
We contimied drifting gradually north, afloat on ice-floes, past 
Graham Land and Joinville Island, and finally took to the boats on 
April 9, 1916, and reached Elephant Island on April 15. The 
Falkland Island Dependencies were thus practically circumnavi- 
gated, and it may be intei'esting to compare the records of whales 
seen in the region outside and to the south of this area Avith the 
records and the percentage of each species captured in the intensive 
tishing area. 
The most productive part of the South Atlantic lies south of 
latitude 50° S., where active operations extend to and even beyond 
the Antarctic circle. It appears to be the general rule in Antarctic 
waters that whales are more numerous the closer the association 
with ice conditions,, and there seems to be reasonable grounds for 
supposing that this may explain the comparatively few whales 
sighted by Expeditions Avhich have explored the more northerly 
and more open seas, while the whalers themselves have even asserted 
that then poor seasons have nearly always coincided with the absence 
of ice, or with poor ice conditions. At all events, those Expeditions 
which have penetrated far south and well into the pack-ice have, 
without exception, reported the presence of whales in large numbers, 
even in the farthest south latitudes, so that our knowledge of the 
occurrence of whales in the Antarctic has been largely derived from 
these Expeditions, whose main object was either the discovery of new 
land or the Pole itself. The largest number of Antarctic Exj)editions 
has concentrated on the two areas of the South Atlantic and the 
Ross Sea, and the records of the occurrences of whales have, in 
consequence, been concentrated in these two localities. In the in- 
tervening areas, however, Expeditions, notably the Belgica on the 
western side and the Gmiss on the eastern side of the Antarctic 
continent, liave reported whales in moderately large numbers, so 
358 
