MORAINES. 
81 
north-east ; they consist of small stones, some ice-scratchecl boulders, and a few 
blocks of rock up to 12 feet across. The beaches of Possession Island, Wood Bay 
and Franklin Island, appear to be similar to the Cape Adare beach. 
Stranded moraines also occur above Cape Crozier on the slopes of Mount Terror 
at heights of 300 to 500 feet. Others on the south-east side are very striking. 
They lie 800 feet above sea-level and are 200 or 300 feet above the level of the 
Ross Piedmont. Other moraines occur on that shoulder of Mount Erebus which 
terminates in Cape Royds. They occur up to a height of 1000 feet, and are very 
well seen near the 800-foot contour. They cover some three square miles of 
area. Granites, and rocks like the dolerites of the Royal Society Range, are 
the most conspicuous components. 
The moraines on the west side of 
McMurdo Sound are developed on a 
larger scale than any other moraines in 
South Victoria Land. An area there, 5 
miles by 3, is one mass of debris- cones, 
some of them being as much as 
100 feet high (Fig. 47). These cones 
rest in some cases upon land, in other 
cases upon fixed ice, and occur on a 
flat which is not more than 4 feet 
above the sea. The cones are more 
or less in lines, and the lines appear 
to radiate irregularly from two points, 
one set of them converging near the 
snout of Blue Glacier. Though the 
cones rise considerably above the edge 
of the land-piedmont described on 
p. 66, they follow its eastward border. 
On the south side of Blue Glacier these cones are replaced by a continuous line 
of moraine, and this hugs the edge of the Southern Foothills for a distance of 
some 30 miles. 
Before leaving the subject we must briefly mention the ice which supports the 
cones and occasionally protrudes through the covering of debris. In particular cases 
it is often impossible to say what part of the material is ice and what part is 
rock-debris, and hence no attempt has here been made to distinguish between 
moraines still being carried by ice and moraines now resting upon the land. 
Even on Cape Royds water oozing from some of the ridges showed that the 
latter contained ice. During summer the fine material is continually being 
separated from the coarse by the water from melted ice (Fig. 52, p. 89). In 
some cases, however, the cloak of debris is too thick to allow the heat of the 
Fig. 47. — Moraines supported by Ice, on the west side 
of McMurdo Sound. 
