342 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1909. 
abuts against the northeast flank of Edward VII Land the higher 
parts reach the extraordinary altitude of 84 meters. 
The most surprising feature in the reports brought by the Dzs- 
covery concerning Ross Barrier relate to its floating character. Sir 
John Murray has confessed that while difficult to believe, and while 
he could not make up his mind that all was floating, he could but 
admit that the border over an extent of 30 to 40 miles was actually 
in this condition. The facts brought out by Captain Scott seem 
nevertheless conclusive. At first sight, there can scarcely be a doubt 
that its terminal edge from Mount Terror to Balloon Bay (longi- 
tude 163° west from Greenwich), where the Discovery penetrated it, 
and which seems to mark the lower limits of Edward VII Land, 
mean depths of 360 to 550 meters were reached by soundings at 
the foot of the Barrier. The ice cliff has a height of scarcely 45 
meters above the surface of the water. It is composed of porous ice 
which can scarcely be submerged for more than six-sevenths of its 
_ mass, probably 250 meters or more. It follows, therefore, that it is 
separated from the sea bottom by 100 to 300 meters of water. An- 
other decisive argument is that the ice cliff partakes gently of the 
movements of the sea. During their stay in the eastern channel, 
to which reference has been made, it was ascertained that the ice 
rose and fell with the vessel. At the east of Mount Terror and 
White Island there is developed a formidable zone of crevasses, 
which attains its maximum at Cape Crozier, where the Barrier is 
crushed against Ross Island and forms five gigantic pressure ridges 
oriented north and south and continuing for a distance of over 50 
kilometers at the least. One recognizes in this chaos a line of frac- 
ture of the Barrier in connection with the tides (tide cracks), and 
resulting from a differential movement of the glacial walls. Along 
Victoria Land to the extreme south the immense glaciers of Shackle- 
ton and Barne inlets tend by their movement to push the barriers 
away from the land. There results from this a region of chaos; 
the surface of the sheet undulates in long ridges, is rifted with 
crevasses and with veritable chasms encumbered with a confusion 
of glacial débris and of new material fallen from the littoral heights 
which extend between the barriers and the land. But at 10 miles 
from the coast all of the inequalities disappear and the monotonous 
surface of the great snow plain without ridge or crevasse extends 
until lost to view. Captain Scott thinks that no mass of ice repos- 
ing on the firm land could be deprived of irregularities to this 
extent.? 
@This last argument, nevertheless, seems to us not irrefutable. The Malas- 
pina Glacier (St. Elias chain) extends to the foot of the mountains upon a low 
alluvial beach. This, too, constitutes a monotonous plain of snow of consider- 
able size (35 to 40 kilometers) without crevasses, of which the line of the 
