ranches of |
3|Gentle breeze | 10 | 0.37 | trees and blows up dust |
4|Moderate breeze| 14 | 0.67 | |
5|Fresh breeze | 19 | 1.16 |Good sailing breeze and |
6|Strong breeze | 25 | 1.90 | makes white caps |
7|Moderate gale | 31 | 2.81 |Sways trees and breaks |
8|Fresh gale | 37 | 3.87 | small branches |
9|Strong gale | 44 | 5.27 |Dangerous for sailing |
10|Whole gale | 53 | 7.40 | vessels |
11|Storm | 64 | 10.40 |Prostrates exposed trees |
12|Hurricane | 77 | 14.40 | and frail houses |
___________________________________________________________________

Beyond the limits of this scale, the pressures exerted rise very
rapidly. A wind recorded as blowing at the rate of a hundred miles per
hour exerts a pressure of about twenty-three pounds per square foot of
surface exposed to it. Wind above eighty miles per hour is stated to
"prostrate everything."

The mileages registered by our anemometer were the mean for a whole
hour, neglecting individual gusts, whose velocity much exceeded the
average and which were always the potent factors in destructive work.

Obviously the greatest care had to be taken to secure everything. Still,
articles of value were occasionally missed. They were usually recovered,
caught in crevices of rock or amongst the broken ice. Northward from
the Hut there was a trail of miscellaneous objects scattered among the
hummocks and pressure-ridges out towards Penguin Hill on the eastern
side of the boat harbour: tins of all kinds and sizes, timber in small
scraps, cases and boards, paper, ashes, dirt, worn-out finnesko, ragged
mitts and all the other details of a rubbish heap. One of the losses
was a heavy case which formed the packing of part of the magnetometer.
Weighted-down by stones this had stood for a long time in what was
regarded as a safe place. One morning it was discovered to be missing.
It was surmised that a hurricane had started it on an ocean voyage
during the previous day. Boxes in which Whetter used to carry ice for
domestic requirements were as a rule short-lived. His problem was to
fill the boxes without losing hold of them, and the wind often gained
the ascendancy before a sufficient ballast had been added. We sometimes
wondered whether any of the flotsam thus c