POLAR GEOGRAPHY BROWN 353 



former continuity across the southern ocean receives further support 

 from our knowledge of submarine relief between Antarctica and 

 Australia, especially the work of the Aurora expedition. 



The relationships between Antarctica and South Africa are still 

 very obscure, since the African quadrant of the Antarctic, both by 

 land and by sea, remains one of the least explored parts. It will 

 prove a fruitful area for an expedition to tackle. 



It is unnecessary to enter into the details of the arguments in 

 geomorphology bearing on the relationships of the two contrasted 

 sides of Antarctica. I have recently expounded these at greater 

 length elsewhere (The Polar Regions, R. N. Rudmore Brown (1927) ). 

 Only further exploration can solve the mystery. We must go and see 

 if we want to know. But it may be of interest to state the possible 

 solutions. 



One suggestion is that the horst of Victoria Land is continuous 

 with the Antarctic Andes. Certainly the direction of the Maud 

 Mountains to the south of the Ross Sea supports this view, and evi- 

 dence of great faults bounding the Andes may show that those ranges 

 after all are not entirely different in nature from the ranges of 

 Victoria Land. A second suggestion is that the Antarctic Andes 

 reappear in the Ross Sea in the old crystalline rocks of King Edward 

 Land — which as yet are but little known — and that these were once 

 continuous with the folds of New Zealand. If this be true, the ranges 

 of Victoria Land and the Maud Mountains probably swing across 

 to Coats Land and may cause those vague shadowy shapes that a 

 few of us who have seen Coats Land believe to exist in its far 

 interior. Nothing is known at first hand of the structure of Coats 

 Land, but rock fragments dredged in the Weddell Sea, and pre- 

 sumably derived from Coats Land, suggest a closer relation with 

 Victoria than with Graham Land. 



In any case, it looks probable that our knowledge of Antarctica 

 confirms the growing belief that the Pacific basin is girdled by a 

 ring of fold mountains marking the course of a system of geosyn- 

 clines. The remains of the borderlands of this Pacific geosyncline 

 may possibly be found in small islands in that mysterious ice-bound 

 region to the north of Edward Land which no ship has been able 

 to penetrate. 



In the face of these great problems in exploration, it seems trivial 

 to speak of the minor ones that await solution in the south. Refer- 

 ence, however, may be made to the desirabiLtj^ of measuring an arc 

 of meridian in a high southern altitude. F. Debenham has pointed 

 out how Victoria Land lends itself to this task.- I have not time to 

 dwell on the problems of meteorological exploration and can only 



' British Antarctic Expedition, 1910-13. Report on Maps and Survey, 1923. 



