PKESIDKNTIAL ADDKKSS SKCTION H. 4.^ 



In this great land, opposite Cape Horn, Graham Land 

 stretches in a point to the north, and there is only a l)reak of 

 some 600 or 700 miles of sea-water between. It is remarkable 

 that a high range, called the Antarctic Andes, a continuation of 

 the Andean chain of South America, runs right across the con- 

 tinent from Graham Land. 



Of the little known of its geology we can see some similarity 

 in tectonic relationship with the areas we have lately been dis- 

 cussing. Water-formed deposits associated with coal-bearing 

 strata, laid down before the oncoming of its Ice Age, have been 

 noticed, while volcanic activity attended the disruption from the 

 lands to the north. 



Knowing of great oscillations of the surface that are fully 

 borne out by the geographical evidence of other periods and 

 continents, it is not incompatible with present information to 

 believe that this great land mass was at one time connected to 

 America, Australia and Africa. It was inhabitable to the early 

 types of the flora and fauna of Gondwanaland, and it is probable 

 that they originated there, to be subsequently driven north by 

 climatic change, such as has already given up Antarctica to 

 frost and snow. Development from the early types would then 

 follow in each continent, and survivors would again be pushed 

 northwards through Africa to India, and through both to Europe 

 and Asia. The former connection was probably along the east 

 coast of Africa along the belt of less deep water, past the Maldive 

 Islands and Seychelles. Madagascar was included, and although 

 the submergence of continental portions of the greater mass took 

 ])lace before the Cretaceous period, this island was only cut off 

 from Africa in the Tertiary period. 



It will thus be understood how much we have yet to learn 

 from the geologist of the South Polar expeditions of the rise and 

 fall of this great land mass and its connection with Gondwana- 

 land. It has been thought that the present zonal distribution 

 of climates of the world has always existed. Did glacial con- 

 ditions prevail there also in later Carboniferous times such as 

 levelled down the mountains and filled the depressions of the 

 Karroo and Gondwanaland ? What were its ancient flora and 

 fauna, and under what conditions of temperature and climate did 

 they exist? What were its climatic changes, or periods of heat 

 or cold, before the final onset of ice and snow that overwhelmed 

 all except the minutest forms of life? 



These are some of the problems of the rocks that yet await 

 solution, and on which light may be shed by the worker in the 

 Permo-Carboniferous rocks of the Southern Hemisphere. 



Effect on Rhodesian Physiography. 



Before closing I have something to say about the forces that 

 are moulding the landscape of Rhodesia. It is fairly certain that 

 much of these plateaux were covered by some one or other mem- 

 bers of the Karroo sequence, of which the forest sandstone at 

 Tabas Induna, the Somabula deposits and the Charter Amygda- 



