302 SCOTT'S LAST EXPEDITION 



A complete physiographic study of the region was made by Mr. 

 Taylor and some important measurements of glacier movement 

 taken. 



At the same time geological collections were being made 

 on the Beardmore Glacier by various parties. The notes made 

 by Dr. Wilson and the specimens collected by him and by Lieu- 

 tenant Bowers are perhaps the most important of all the geo- 

 logical results. 



The plant fossils collected by this party are the best preserved 

 of any yet found in this quadrant of the Antarctic and are of 

 the character best suited to settle a long-standing controversy be- 

 tween geologists as to the nature of the former union between 

 Antarctica and Australasia. 



In December of 1912 a party of six under Mr. Priestley as- 

 cended Mt. Erebus by a new route and spent a fortnight on the 

 upper slopes collecting and surveying. The positions of the for- 

 mer craters or calderas and of the fumerole areas were care- 

 fully mapped and much of the former history of the volcano 

 ascertained. 



In the Northern Party, stationed at Cape Adare for the first 

 season, a journey chiefly geographical and geological was made 

 along the coastline to the west. Owing to unfavourable ice-con- 

 ditions the party was not able to go very far, but Mr. Priestley 

 was able to make a comprehensive collection of the slates and 

 schists of the region, supplemented in the summer by the recent 

 lavas of Cape Adare itself. 



In the succeeding year, being landed by the ship at Evans 

 Coves, the same party made a journey into entirely new country 

 in the neighbourhood of Mt. Melbourne and obtained further 

 fossil evidence from the great Beacon Sandstone Series. 



Throughout his journeys Mr. Priestley made a special study 

 of local ice conditions which together with Mr. Wright's work 

 with the main party will furnish a very complete report on ice 

 phenomena in the Antarctic. 



From this summary it will be seen that the geological work 

 of the Expedition was particularly comprehensive and was one 

 of the chief items in the scientific syllabus of the Expedition. 

 The mass of material brought back will be worked up and pub- 

 lished in a special Geological Report. 



