Isabel Abercrombie, age 11, of Vancouver, B. C., or her question:

Where i s the: coldest spot in the world?

The coldest, and certainly the meanest, climate in the world is most likely near the South Pole. We expect to know this for certain when all the facts have been gathered during the Geophysical Year. So far the coldest Antarctic record is minus 80 degrees Fahrenheit. We can expect the coldest spot on earth to be the continent of Antarctica because the giant land mass makes the south polar regions colder than the watery Arctic.

So far, our records of the Arctic regions are more complete. Here also, as we would expect, the nearby land areas get much colder than the sea areas directly over the north pole. The great land mass of Siberia holds the records for the coldest temperatures in the weather ever recorded. In February of 1892, the temperature near Verkhoyansk dropped to minus 94 degrees Fahrenheit. Minus 90 degrees is not surprising winter weather in Siberia.

Summer thaws the ground and warms the air over Siberia. The south pole never thaws and hence its year round weather must be the coldest in the world. It may have cold snaps of even lower temperatures than Siberia, but we have no records of them as yet.