304 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909. 
Skelton, Mulock, Barne, and Shackleton. In this assemblage of 
mountains, seen for a distance of 700 kilometers, Captain Scott and 
his companions had for a long time as a familiar landmark Mount 
Albert Markham (38,200 meters), which they had at first named 
“Table Mountain,” and its southern satellite of geometric aspect, 
Pyramid Mount. Elsewhere, toward latitude 74° 30’ south, Mount 
Nansen, with its plainly horizontal crest and abrupt escarpments, 
recalled strikingly to mind the Table Mountain of Cape of Good Hope. 
Finally, in the excursion that he made to the east and which carried 
him 450 kilometers into Victoria Land, Mr. Ferrar, in company with 
Captain Scott, reported that the geographic features we have de- 
scribed continue as far as land remained visible. In proportion as one 
advances into the interior, the inland ice submerges the mountains. 
The ancient rocks of the subbasement are first to disappear, then the 
lower and upper bed of sandstone. The last peak, the ‘“ Depot Nun- 
atak,” presenting only a huge mass of columnar dolerite of an actual 
height of 2,330 meters, but projecting only 150 meters above the snow 
fields. This is situated about 95 kilometers from the coast and in com- 
plete isolation, since separated some 13 kilometers from the dolerite 
crowned table-land to the east. 
It appears that the eastern escarpment of the mountains thus con- 
stituted corresponds to a profound north and south line of fracture. 
The escarpment thus formed has evidently undergone a reelevation 
which Mr. Ferrar believes to have been recent, since the beds of 
both dolerite and sandstone were dissected by erosion before the 
tectonic movements occurred to disarrange the continuity of the 
latter. That these tectonic movements occurred is attested by the 
fact that the sandstones, without losing their horizontality, have 
undergone a reelevation en masse in those chains that border on the 
coast. Thus is explained the fact that the Royal Society Range 
affords altitudes of 38,000 to 3,900 meters (Mount Huggins 3,918 
meters, Mount Lister 3,960 meters), and that the outlines of the coast, 
so clearly reelevated and cut by the profound breaches of the gla- 
ciers take on a pyramidal aspect. Farther into the interior, toward 
the inland ice, the altitude is peculiarly less; Knob Head 2,530 meters, 
Beacon Heights 2,400 meters, Depot Nunatak 2,330 meters. This 
last height is maintained for immense distances over the interior ice 
sheet. There is, then, no reason for surprise that the lands which 
have a constant tendency toward a diminished elevation toward the 
interior become finally entirely submerged by the snow fields of the 
inland ice cap. 
The probability of a line of fracture is confirmed by the align- 
ment of the isolated volcanic cones which are arranged along the 
low hills immediately bordering the coast, in constant parallelism 
with the mountain wall. These cones are individually distinct. 
