Report of Meeting Volume 10 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1905 Excerpt: ...corner of Australia. The Southern Ocean washes the whole southern shore of Australia, and may fairly be extended to include all the Tasman Sea. It runs down the western shores of New Zealand, and thence continues southward to the antarctic continent, near Cape Adair, where the Atlantic-coast type of Wilkes Land joins the Pacific-coast type of Victoria Land. The whole Pacific is one geographical unit. It is bounded entirely by coasts of the Pacific type. If we limit the Southern Ocean to the great ocean-belt that extends from South America and Graham's Land on the west, past South Africa to New Zealand on the east, it also may be regarded as an independent geographical unit, bounded by coasts of the Atlantic type. The general idea as to the nature of the Southern Ocean at the close of the work of the "Challenger" expedition is well expressed in Wyld's "Thalassa." It was thought that the South Pacific consisted of one vast depression, occupying the area between the South Pacific island-chain and the northern boundary of the shallower water beside the antarctic lands. The Southern Atlantic was represented as two troughs, separated by a ridge down the central line of the Atlantic. South of the Cape there was thought to be another trough from 2,000 to 3,000 fathoms deep, connecting the deep basin of the eastern Atlantic with the main basin of the Indian Ocean. The platform on the southern border of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans was regarded as an extension of the antarctic plateau, while the deep troughs of the Southern Atlantic and Indian Oceans were the channels by which the cold water, which chills the deeper waters of the great oceans, flows slowly north from the Antarctic. The work of the last five years has changed most of that. The &q...