462 ANNUAL KEPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1908. 



clearly the more or less dismantled conical form of these summits." 

 But the most interesting of all of the Discovery''s findings is the 

 sandstone Avith Miocene fossils, proved to exist in several of the glacial 

 valleys of Victoria Land. Their strata, filled with basalts, are strictly 

 horizontal and thick, no doubt in some places several hundred meters.'' 

 This observation would establish the period of the greater volcanic 

 convulsions in the region, as also the sinking of Erebus Sea ; both 

 seem to be contemporaneous with the rising of the West Antarctica 

 summits, and the chart also shows that both ranges seem to stretch 

 one beyond the other across the icy solitude of the pole. 



Without attempting to force a conclusion, one of the possible 

 hypotheses concerning the contour of polar lands between Pierre I 

 Island and Edward VII Land would be that of a great crescent cor- 

 responding to that portion of the polar ice where no vessel has yet 

 approached save that of Bellingshausen in 1821. 



Part II. Scientific Results of the Expeditions. 



THE AUSTRAL SEA. 



The complete scientific results of the voyage of the Discovery not 

 having yet been published, it is concerning that part of the southern 

 sea near West Antarctide that we have the latest information, and 

 although the observers may have turned their attention in other di- 

 rections, yet there are certain important conclusions that indicate a 

 course for future expeditions. 



At the close of the last century the charts showed the depths of 

 the South Pacific toward latitude G0° S. and longitude TG° W. of 

 Paris, to the southwest of Cape Horn. The charts indicated also a 

 submerged plateau nearly 2,000 meters deep, on which rest the small 

 archipelagoes between Antarctica and the Falkland Islands. The 

 soundings of the Belgica and those of the Scotia in the South At- 

 lantic and in Weddell Sea have established this fact. M. de Ger- 

 lache had proved that in Drake Strait, between the Falklands and 

 South Georgia there is a depth of 4,040 meters in latitude 55° 51' S." 

 Bruce's repeated observations (75 soundings) have established on this 

 side the southern limit of the South Atlantic threshold, upon which 

 rest the Falkland Islands, in about latitude 55° S. With a depth of 

 from 3,000 to 4,000 meters, it drops into a submarine valley in lati- 

 tude C0° S. more than 5,000 meters deep, extending from west to east 

 from the Sandwich Group toward Kerguelen. The maximum sound- 

 ing taken in Weddell Sea at latitude 70° 21' S. was 4,650 meters.** 



°' Scott : The voyage of the Discovery, Vol. II, p. 152, etc. 

 ''Ibid. : P. 140. 



''De Gerlache: Op. cit., p. 104. 



<* Compai-e the sonudings made by the Gatiss southwest of Kerguelen as the 

 ship was euteriug the ice (lat. 05° S.). showing a depth of 3,165 meters. 



