28 J. SCHETELIG. M.-N. Kl. 



than the limestone-series of lower-Cambrian age. The intrusive granites 

 show over large areas a well-marked even surface forming the horizontal 

 base for the Gondwana-sandstone (Beacon Sandstone) deposited upon the 

 granite. According to the description by Prior ■* the granites are light 

 gray or reddish of colour, showing none or only feeble characteristics ol 

 stress- effect. 



The gneisses and mica-schists from Mt. Betty described above, collected 

 by Roald Amundsen, belong undoubtedly to the pre-Cambrian complex of 

 gneisses and crystalline schists, which as stated by the investigations of the 

 British Antarctic expeditions is met with as basement rock-complex from 

 Adelie Land along the coast-line of South Victoria Land to the base of 

 the Beardmore-Glacier. 



The granites from Mt. Betty are as the collected rock-specimens prove, 

 younger than the gneisses, but the exact age of them can not be stated 

 with certainty. Though it is perhaps most probable, that the granites frotn 

 Mt. Betty arc connected ivith the intrusive granites farther North in South 

 Victoria Land, regarded as post-Cambrian and prc-Gondwatia. The specimens 

 of the post-Cambrian granite from South Victoria Land, which I have had 

 the opportunity of examining in the British Museum of Natural History^ 

 are with regard to colour, external appearance and mineral composition 

 very similar to the light coloured granite-samples from Mt. Betty. Also 

 with regard to the feeble effect of stress the granite from Mt. Betty shows 

 resemblance to the post-Cambrian granite from South Victoria Land. 



Gneisses and granites are also known from other parts of the coast 

 of the Antarctic Continent, but partly only from erratics. In the neigh- 

 bourhood of Mt. Gauss Mawson '^ found granite. Among the rocks 

 collected from erratic boulders in the moraines at Mt. Gauss during the 

 German South Polar Expedition 1901 — 03. Reinisch '-* describes gneisses 

 and granites of various types, and also sandstone, quartzite and crystalline 

 limestone. According to the description the microcline-bearing granites with 

 both biotite and muscovite may be very like the granites from Mt. Betty 

 and Scott's Nunataks. Among rock-pebbles dredged on the German Valdivia 

 Expedition at a depth of 4600 m. in the neighbourhood of Enderby Land 

 gneisses and granites prevail ^°. Gneiss is also the prominent rock among 

 pebbles dredged from the Weddel Sea (Nordenskiöld p. 21) ^. 



The geology of King Edward VII Land was hitherto completely un- 

 known the rocks collected from Scott's Nunataks giving the first contri- 

 butions to the geology of this land are therefore of great importance. 

 The collected specimens of gneiss, amphibolite and coarse pegmatite, 

 apparently rocks of great geological age and showing strong metamorphism, 



