340 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909. 
notable in this connection that Mr. Scott declares the inland ice 
which is maintained over vast reaches at an altitude of 2,300 meters, 
has likewise diminished from 120 to 150 meters. It is, then, per- 
missible to make the following hypothesis: The inland ice of Vic- 
toria Land, which still offers to-day such grandiose proportions, 
can not escape on the side of the chain of mountains which raises 
its formidable wall up on its eastern coast. This acts as a dam 
which it has been able to override easily only at a period of very 
intense glaciation, when the fields of snow attained a much higher 
level. Its natural flow probably follows another direction, and it 
is doubtless on the side of Wilkes Land on the Clarie and Adelia 
coast that one must seek for the principal discharge of the inland 
ice of Victoria Land. 
As has elsewhere been mentioned, the Clarie coast, that barrier of 
continuous ice over a distance of 20 leagues with a height of from 
38 to 42 meters, as depicted by Dumont d’Urville, seems the exact 
equivalent of Ross’s great barrier. Everything leads to the belief 
that between this Clarie coast and Cape North, which is at present the 
recognized terminal of the Admiralty (?) Range to the northwest, 
other barriers of the same kind, the probable end of the Victorian 
inland ice, will some day be revealed. 
These ideas have been suggested by the following observation: The 
counter proof of the great glacial activity in the antarctic regions as 
in Greenland, is the icebergs. Now, Mr. Ferrar expressly states that 
very few of these come from the ruptures in the cliffs of Victoria 
Land so far yet known. In the space of sixteen months the Blue 
glacier has not furnished a single one, and the contributions of the 
Ferrar glaciers is without doubt negligible. Feeble also is the sup- 
ply of the local glaciers which fringe the banks or encircle the islands, 
and to which Mr. Ferrar, using a term invented by Mr. I. C. Russell, 
apples the name ** Piedmont Glaciers of the Continent,” or “ stranded 
glaciers.” There scarcely can result from them anything except 
secondary or irregular icebergs. In fact, the great majority of the 
antarctic icebergs come from what Mr. Ferrar calls the “ piedmonts 
afloat ” (floating glaciers), and which we shall call by their old name 
of “ glacier barriers.” We can not, indeed, subscribe to the designa- 
tion proposed and employed by the English geologist for the forma- 
tion of the extraordinary glaciers. It seems to us that it is out of a 
pure desire for symmetry and classification that he feels himself 
obliged to class the Ross Barrier among the Piedmont glaciers. 
Moreover, we still know very little of the famous barrier, though 
the explorers of the Discovery have trod its fields of snow, and 
Captain Scott recognized it toward the south for more than 4 
degrees of latitude. We are entirely ignorant of its origin, and 
we do not even know whether it constitutes a true piedmont, that 
