  We have surveyed a ~0.9-square-degree area of the W3 giant molecular cloud
and star-forming region in the 850-micron continuum, using the SCUBA bolometer
array on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope. A complete sample of 316 dense
clumps was detected with a mass range from around 13 to 2500 Msun. Part of the
W3 GMC is subject to an interaction with the HII region and fast stellar winds
generated by the nearby W4 OB association. We find that the fraction of total
gas mass in dense, 850-micron traced structures is significantly altered by
this interaction, being around 5% to 13% in the undisturbed cloud but ~25 - 37%
in the feedback-affected region. The mass distribution in the detected clump
sample depends somewhat on assumptions of dust temperature and is not a simple,
single power law but contains significant structure at intermediate masses.
This structure is likely to be due to crowding of sources near or below the
spatial resolution of the observations. There is little evidence of any
difference between the index of the high-mass end of the clump mass function in
the compressed region and in the unaffected cloud. The consequences of these
results are discussed in terms of current models of triggered star formation.
