FROM EDINBURGH TO THE ANTARCTIC 355 
night there may be a variation of more than twice that 
amount. 
During the five months since our return, I have experi- 
enced in London temperatures ten degrees higher than 
on either of our crossings of the Equator, and five degrees 
lower than our lowest recorded temperature in the 
■ 
Antarctic. 
The average temperatures show a still more remarkable 
uniformity. December averaged 31 '14° Fahr. for one 
hundred and fifteen readings; January, 31-10° Fahr. for 
one hundred and ninety-eight readings ; February, 29*65° 
for one hundred and sixteen readings — a range of less 
than i'5° Fahr. This seems worthy of the special attention 
of future Antarctic explorers, for may it not indicate a 
similar uniformity of temperature throughout the year? 
Antarctic cold has been much dreaded by some ; the 
four hundred and twenty-nine readings I took during 
December, January, and February, show an average 
m temperature of only 3076 0 Fahr. This was in the very 
height of summer, in latitudes corresponding to that 
of She Faroe Islands in the North, but I believe the 
temperature of winter does not vary so much from that 
of the summer as in the North. 
Land. — What land we saw was entirely snow-clad, 
except in the steepest slopes, where the snow was unable 
to lie. These uncovered parts appeared quite black. 
On the 1 2th of January 1893, the Balaena discovered a 
tract of mountainous land lying to the S.W. of Erebus 
and Terror Gulf ; this land has been more fully described 
