458 ANNUAL, REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1908. 



An impression of repulsion has been felt by all at first sight of these 

 lands. The phrases " fierce grandeur " or " wild solitude " are used 

 often at the beginning of the narratives of the voyages. Photographs 

 of the region justify such feelings, showing, as they do, the great ice- 

 bound shores, with few small islands, the sharp mountainous heights, 

 and the littoral ridges and black cliffs, their fronts hooded always 

 with heavy mists where piedmont glaciers hold the place of shores. 



The whole region forms a system remarkably symmetrical with the 

 southern Andes, having the same outward appearance. Nearly all the 

 principal altitudes are toward the Pacific. The mountain chain is 

 broken into a multitude of islands. According to the name given by 

 the geologist of the Belgica^ it is an Antarctic Andes. 



The scientific classification of the specimens of rocks collected by 

 the explorers gives an idea of the general structure of this gToup of 

 lands. The base, appearing in several places along the west littoral 

 (Graham Land), is of j^rimitive rocks, perhaps extending over wide 

 areas buried beneath the covering of ice. The majority of the abrupt 

 peaks along the coast, from Louis Philippe Land to Graham Land, 

 and the high rocks of the islands of Gerlache Strait and of the Palmer 

 Archipelago, relate back to ancient volcanic disturbances. In this 

 class are the geological formations of Danco Land, between Wilhel- 

 mina and Flanders bays (granites, serpentines, and porphyries) , and 

 those of the Wiencke and Wandel islands (diorites, gabbros).*^ The 

 high cones of Graham Land, such as the summit of Mount Matin 

 (2,000 meters?), those of the Antwerp Island, where Mount Fran- 

 gais rises 2,G89 meters, and the peaks of Biscoe Islands are, perhaps, 

 recently extinct volcanoes. The geologist of the Frangais^ M. Gour- 

 don, found as positive evidence in this connection only a ledge of 

 trachytic andesite 200 meters high on Wiencke Island ; but he gathered 

 specimens of basalt from the debris of glacial moraines or from 

 transported rocks in such quantities and at such an altitude that 

 they could not have come from a very far-distant source.^ 



However, the existence of recent volcanic disturbances, though not 

 active, on the southeast side of the Antarctic Andes is not to be 

 doubted since O. Nordenskj old's and Andersson's observations. Mount 

 Haddington (2,450 meters), on Ross Island, and the cone of Paulet 

 Island, are volcanoes of the same geologic period as the Andes. Ba- 

 salts and basaltic tufas, cut by hard veins, cover in thick layers the 

 sedimentary soil toward King Oscar Land.*^ The craters may form 

 two series ; one on Louis Philippe Land and Joinville Island, and the 



'^ De Gerlache : Fifteen months, etc., p. 151. Doctor Charcot : Le FranQais au 

 pole Slid, pp. 41, etc., 445 (Gourdon). 



^Doctor Charcot: Op. cit, p. 448. 



<' O. Nordenskjold : Au pole antarctique, p. 316, etc. Ibid. : La Geogr., 1904, 

 Vol. II, p. 354. 



