THE ANTARCTIC QUESTION" MACHAT. 459 



other on Eoss Island, parallel to the volcanoes of the South Shetlands, 

 where Mount Bridginan is active. 



Before the return of the Swedish expedition, the presence of sedi- 

 mentary rocks in West Antarctic was only suspected.'' The only 

 support for this suspicion was a few schist fragments detached by 

 Arctowski from the side of a hill in Wilhelmina Bay (Danco 

 Land).^ The discoveries by O. Nordenskjold and his companions 

 on the southeast of Palmer Land disclosed there the superposition 

 one on the other of several geological beds, the highest being most 

 likely of the Tertiary period. At I'Esperance J^ay, Andersson and 

 Duse obtained specimens of schist, in place, associated with a Jurassic 

 fauna. On Ross and Sej^mour islands, under the volcanic basalts 

 and tufas there are vast layers of fossil-bearing sandstone, containing 

 in their lowest portion ammonites, and throughout the remains of 

 northern plants, Sequoias and Araucarias, Cycads, Filices, together 

 with remnants of vertebrate animals dating from the middle or upper 

 Cretaceous, Finally, on Seymour and Snow Hill islands, superposed 

 on the preceding layers and corresponding with them, have appeared 

 deposits of soft sandstone, over which the snow does not remain, and 

 which contain bones of a variety of great swimming bird or penguin 

 of the Tertiary age." The Quaternary formations have not been 

 found outside of the coast moraines. 



Thus we have a clear conception of the net conclusions which 

 Nordenskjold and Arctowski have formulated. The high chain of 

 sharp peaks and the general southwest to northeast curvature which 

 all the neighboring islands have is similar to that of the Andes and 

 perfectly homologous wath them. According to M. Lacroix, who has 

 studied the specimens, this chain of peaks should be included in the 

 American petrographic province. As in Patagonia, so in King Oscar 

 Land, a plateau here covered with ice extends from this range to 

 the eastward. It might have been said that these lands were still 

 joined in comparatively recent times had not the soundings taken by 

 the Belc/ica, between the Falklands and South Georgia, revealed 

 depths of 1,985 fathoms toward latitude 53° S., which according to 

 Dr. Fr. A. Cook do not extend elsewhere. In the instructions pre- 

 pared for Doctor Charcot's next voyage, M. Gaudry does not, how- 

 ever, hesitate to state that " paleontological history is incomprehen- 

 sible if Patagonia, Australia, and even Madagascar are not parts of 

 the Antarctic continent." The onl}^ difference of structure between 

 the antarctic lands and the southern part of South America is due 

 to the absence, in the former, of the Quaternary beds on the east as 



" Zimmerman : Ann. de Geogr., 1902, p. 385. 



6De Gerlache: Op. cit„ p. 127. 



« O. Nordeuskjuld : Op. cit., pp. 123, 130, 229. 



