Antarctic Ocean
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Antarctic Ocean. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
the ocean situated about, or within, the Antarctic Circle. The great Southern Ocean is that part of the ocean which surrounds the world in one continuous band between the latitude of 40° S. and the Antarctic Circle. This band is only partially interrupted by the southern prolongation of South America. The northern portions of this band are often called the South Atlantic, South Indian, and South Pacific, while the southern portions are usually called the Antarctic Ocean. The average depth of the continuous ocean surrounding the South Polar Land is about 2 mil miles; it gradually gradually shoals toward Antarctic Land, which in some places is met with a short distance within the Antarctic Circle. The "Challenger" found 1,800 fathoms near the Antarctic Circle S. of Kerguelen, but Ross records a much greater depth in the same latitude S. of the Sandwich group. Only three navigators, Cook, Weddell, and Ross, have crossed the 70th parallel S. Of several other expeditions that have crossed the Antarctic Circle the most notable was the "Challenger," in 1874, the only steam vessel that had visited these seas. The majority of Antarctic voyagers have discovered land S. of the 60th parallel, Cook in 71° S. and 107° W. Bellingshausen discovered Peter Island and Alexander Land; D'Urville discovered Adelie Land. Wilkes found land extending from the 100th to the 160th meridian of E. longitude between the parallels of 65° and 67° S. Ross discovered Victoria Land, and in February, 1841, sailed along its coasts within sight of the high mountain ranges, 7,000 to 10,000 feet above the sea, as far as 78° S. The mountain range here terminated in an active volcano, Mount Erebus, 12,000 feet in height. His farther progress was stopped by an icy barrier 150 to 200 feet in height, along which he sailed to the E. for 300 miles. Till 1895, Ross and D'Urville alone succeeded in setting foot on land within the Antarctic Circle. Vegetation was found on it in 1895; land animals have not been seen. Whales, grampuses, seals, penguins, petrels, albatrosses, and other oceanic birds abound. Diatoms are very abundant in the surface-waters, and their dead frustules form a pure white deposit called diatom ooze, about the latitude of 60°, outside the blue muds which surround the continent. The mean temperature both of the air and sea, S. of 63° S., is even in summer below the freezing point of sea water. Between 60° and 63° S., a sensible rise takes place, temperature as high as 38° F. being recorded both of sea and air in March. The barometric pressure within the Antarctic regions appears to be low, considerably under 29.000 inches. The winds blow cyclonically in toward the Pole from the Southern Ocean, carrying with them much moisture. The fall of rain and snow is estimated as about equal to a rainfall of 30 inches annually. For the latest results of Antarctic discovery See ARCTIC AND ANT- ARCTIC EXPLORATIONS.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a name commonly given to the waters that surround the ice-capped south polar regions. While not a naturally defined ocean at all, its northern limit is considered to be the Antarctic Circle . This zone of water contains a great number of islands, and is evidently traversed by ocean currents that carry icebergs into the southern parts of the adjacent oceans.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's doubt in 1910 that this was "a naturally defined ocean at all" was settled in 2000, when the International Hydrographic Organization recognised the Southern Ocean as the world's fifth, bounded not by the Antarctic Circle but by the 60th parallel south — a line chosen because it roughly follows the Antarctic Circumpolar Current, the largest current on earth, which rings the continent and keeps its cold water and cold climate to itself. Collier's list of "only three navigators, Cook, Weddell, and Ross" past 70° S was already out of date in 1921: Amundsen had stood at the South Pole in December 1911 and Shackleton's Endurance had been crushed in the Weddell Sea in 1915. Ross's "icy barrier 150 to 200 feet in height" is now the Ross Ice Shelf, mapped, drilled through and monitored by satellite, and the deepest soundings lie in the South Sandwich Trench, far below the 1,800 fathoms of the Challenger. The old sense that "land animals have not been seen" holds for vertebrates, but the ocean itself is now understood as one of the most productive on earth, its krill supporting the whales and penguins the entry lists — and fished commercially since the 1970s under the 1959 Antarctic Treaty system.
Written for this edition, 2026.