302 SCOTT'S LASSE: EAPEDITION 
A complete physiographic study of the region was made by Mr. 
Taylor and some important measurements of glacier movement 
taken. 
At the same time geological collections were being made 
on the Beardmore Glacier by various parties. The notes made 
by Dr. Wilson and the specimens collected by him and by Lieu- 
tenant Bowers are perhaps the most important of all the geo- 
logical results. 
The plant fossils collected by this party are the best preserved 
of any yet found in this quadrant of the Antarctic and are of 
the character best suited to settle a long-standing controversy be- 
tween geologists as to the nature of the former union between 
Antarctica and Australasia. 
In December of 1912 a party of six under Mr. Priestley as- 
cended Mt. Erebus by a new route and spent a fortnight on the 
upper slopes collecting and surveying. The positions of the for- 
mer craters or calderas and of the fumerole areas were care- 
fully mapped and much of the former history of the volcano 
ascertained. | 
In the Northern Party, stationed at Cape Adare for the first 
season, a journey chiefly geographical and geological was made 
along the coastline to the west. Owing to unfavourable ice-con- 
ditions the party was not able to go very far, but Mr. Priestley 
was able to make a comprehensive collection of the slates and 
schists of the region, supplemented in the summer by the recent 
lavas of Cape Adare itself. : 
In the succeeding year, being landed by the ship at Evans 
Coves, the same party made a journey into entirely new country 
in the neighbourhood of Mt. Melbourne and obtained further 
fossil evidence from the great Beacon Sandstone Series. 
Throughout his journeys Mr. Priestley made a special study 
of local ice conditions which together with Mr. Wright’s work 
with the main party will furnish a very complete report on ice 
phenomena in the Antarctic. 
From this summary it will be seen that the geological work 
of the Expedition was particularly comprehensive and was one 
of the chief items in the scientific syllabus of the Expedition. 
The mass of material brought back will be worked up and pub- 
lished in a special Geological Report. 
