ANTARCTIC LAND OF VICTORIA—ZIMMERMANN. gat 
their gathering ground. Numerous glaciers are formed with in- 
significant reservoirs of snow. Nay, more; such a glacier, cut off 
from its feeding ground by the gradual cessation of the glacial 
phenomena, continues, nevertheless, to give rise to the ice slabs, which 
represent nothing more than lobes no longer supplied with snow, 
and without doubt deprived of motion. This observation will suffice 
to show the difficulty of comparisons with familiar glacial forms, 
such as those of the Alps or Norway. An appearance purely super- 
ficial and fallacious has led Mr. Ferrar to group certain glaciers of 
the Cathedral rocks and the Kukri Hills, which border the Ferrar 
Glacier, among the Alpine glaciers. Certainly their régime, their 
physiology, if we may so call it, is not Alpine. Finally, one gen- 
eral trait seems to us to characterize the glacier, properly called, 
of Victoria Land. It is the surprising contradiction which exists 
between the very marked external appearance of glaciation and, 
on the other hand, the slowness of its evolution, which seems to-day 
to reach the point of almost complete stagnation. To be sure, the 
observers of the Discovery have not made many measurements be- 
cause of the great distance of their winter quarters from them. 
Nevertheless, Mr. Ferrar gives some interesting estimates. The 
south arm, the meridional feeder of the Glacier Ferrar, beyond ques- 
tion does not advance into the east fork at a rate greater than 6 Eng- 
lish feet a month. The Blue Glacier, one of the independent glaciers 
which cover the gneissic foothills, advances at a rate of less than 4 
English feet a year. The fact that the crevasses of the Ferrar 
Glacier remain always covered with snow is explained by these in- 
significant figures, as is also the fact that neither the Ferrar or Blue 
glaciers cause any marked disturbance in the fringe of coast ice. 
Really, then, one would have ground for saying that the glaciers 
of Victoria Land are inactive; that they have no motion. What 
is a rate of 6 centimeters, or one-fourth of a centimeter a day, com- 
pared with the figures to which the lowest of the Alpine glaciers 
have accustomed us? It is difficult, too, after the facts to which 
the glaciers of our own mountains or of the boreal world have ac- 
customed us, to imagine a glacial covering of such magnitude as 
shown by the photographs of the Ferrar Glacier, or above all those 
of the Royal Society Range. From base to summit, except for rocky 
surfaces of little extent, the mountains of this range are buried be- 
neath snow and ice; only the surfaces turned toward the east and 
the south seem notably free (particularly the slope south of the 
Kukri Hills). There is therefore every external appearance of in- 
tensity of glaciation, and at the same time stagnation, almost com- 
plete rigidity of this frozen cuirasse. That at some point these 
masses of ice are in a state of tension the following observation 
proves: In the midst of the amphitheater of the Ferrar Glacier 
