298 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION 



posits of approximately the same period under slightly varying 

 conditions. 



In the Royal Society Range (Lat. 78-79) the sandstone 

 itself tells us a good deal. The grains of sand are very well 

 rounded, as though windworn, there is much false bedding, the 

 shale bands are thin, and there are remains of fresh-water plants 

 in these bands. From those facts we can postulate a low-lying 

 area with sand-dunes or desert sand in the neighbourhood, which 

 was collected and redeposited, probably by water. A semi-arid 

 climate prevented any great amount of animal or vegetable life, 

 for there are no fossils in the sandstone. There are, however, 

 worm-markings, ripple-marks, and the casts of sun-cracks, all 

 of which mean conditions such as now obtain in parts of the 

 Gobi Desert. As far as is known, sea-water had no part in this 

 great series of deposits. Yet the climate varied according to 

 both place and time, for in the Beardmore district there are many 

 coal beds and thick shale deposits, marking probably a humid 

 climate and a marshy topography. These conditions were re- 

 peated in a smaller degree in the Granite Harbour district and 

 to the north. Throughout the whole area there must have been 

 rapid, if not large, rivers, for the sandstone in places contains 

 small pockets and bands of coarse conglomerate a sign either 

 of coastal sea-action or of rapid rivers. 



For this period, therefore, we may not be far wrong if we 

 imagine a land somewhat approaching in conditions the Southern 

 Sahara or the outskirts of the Gobi Desert. Too much emphasis 

 must not be laid upon its desert character, however, for our only 

 evidence for that is the wind-blown appearance of the sandgrains, 

 and the absence of fossils in the sandstone itself. The same 

 conditions probably held over what is now the Ross Sea and the 

 Great Ice-Barrier, these being formed at a much later period. 

 The Beacon Sandstone series is the most important yet found in 

 that quadrant of the Antarctic, for it is not only the latest sedi- 

 mentary deposit of any magnitude, but it undoubtedly has locked 

 up in it great stores of fossil evidence which have as yet hardly 

 been touched by geologists. 



In the absence of later sedimentary deposits, the more recent 

 history of Victoria Land is somewhat hypothetical, but one very 

 definite period stands out, marked by a geological phenomenon 

 for which there are few analogies to be found in the world. 



