116 Transacl'ious. — Miscellaneoiis. 



cause has been put forward. We may hope, however, that this 

 problem will also be solved as one of the results of the pro- 

 posed expeditions. 



It is also well known that the crust of the earth is not 

 perfectly rigid, and pendulum swingings taken from time to 

 time will aid in determining whether, if at all, the great 

 masses of ice resting on the outer limits of the antarctic 

 land> either with or without the accumulations of drift result- 

 ing from glacial erosion and deposited along the true shore- 

 line, have caused subsidence of the areas on which they rest. 

 Geologists are at present divided in opinion on this question, 

 for the determination of which even a limited number of 

 pendulum experiments made in Graham and Victoria Lands 

 will be of more value than almost any amount of observation 

 elsewhere. 



Besides these matters, there is a probability, and, at all 

 events, much expectation, that the proposed investigations 

 will throw light upon important points relating to the origin 

 and distribution of animals and plants in Tertiary times. It 

 is abundantly clear that such questions cannot be fully solved 

 whilst we remain in ignorance of the physical conditions, past 

 and present, of the antarctic continent.- In papers which I 

 read before this society in 1877, I pointed out that, until the 

 surface of our globe had cooled down to such an extent as to 

 admit of water resting upon it at a temperature not incon- 

 sistent with life, no life in any of the forms known to us 

 could have arisen at all. I also pointed out that astronomers 

 and physicists were agreed that long before such a degree 

 of cooling had taken place the earth must have revolved 

 round the sun in its present orbit ; and I further pointed out 

 that, for long after any part of its polar surfaces had cooled 

 down to the extent required for the existence and mainten- 

 ance of life, the surface heat must have remained too great 

 in equatorial regions to admit of this. If these views be 

 correct, then it must be assumed that the polar regions were 

 the first to present the necessary conditions for the develop- 

 ment and maintenance of living organisms, and that these, 

 and their modified forms, must gradually have spread towards 

 the equator when and as the intervening surfaces became 

 suited by temperature and otherwise to receive them. I still 

 hold the same views, and the more strongly because, since I 

 wrote the papers referred to, much greater authorities than I 

 can pretend to be upon such questions have expressed similar 

 ones. Whether, however, they have any foundation or not, it 

 is certain, looking to the enormous extent and peculiar form 

 of the antarctic continent, that we may reasonably look 

 forward to some light being thrown upon the nature of the 

 fauna and flora that occupied it during past times, by the 



