I.] GEOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS 323 



1 

 South Victoria Land. 



If reference be made to the chart, it will be seen that we have 

 to consider : 



(a) Islands lying off the coast of South Victoria Land. 



(b) A magnificent range of mountains, proved by the great 



journey of Captain Scott to be at least 800 miles long. 



(c) The rocks composing this range. 



(d) The ice in all its forms. 



The Islands. 



The islands such as the Balleny Group and Beaufort Island 

 may be dismissed with the observation that these, like the islands 

 from which specimens have been obtained, were surrounded by 

 cliffs. These cliffs occasionally display irregular coloured bands 

 similar to the bands on Cape Adare and Coulman Island, and as 

 the latter proved to consist of basalt agglomerate, it is highly 

 probable that the same rock is developed in all. The soundings 

 near these islands showed the depth of the sea to be about 270 

 fathoms, and as the outlines of the Balleny Islands, at any rate, 

 are stepped cones, great denudation must have taken place in the 

 past. 



Scott Island^ in latitude 67 24' 5" S., longitude 1 79 55' 5" W., 

 was discovered by Captain Colbeck in December 1902, and the 

 specimens collected by Mr. Morrison are all of the same type of 

 olivine basalt. 



The Possession Islands have already been mentioned, but it is 

 very probable that the specimens previously obtained here were 

 not found in situ. The rocks collected by Mr. Morrison may be 

 safely taken as representative of this group of islands. Two 

 varieties were procured by him : the one a palagonite-tuff very 

 similar to the tuffs found on Cape Adare and Castle Rock near the 

 1 Discovery's ' Winter Quarters, and the other a grey olivine basalt 

 with large porphyritic crystals of olivine. 



Coulman Island, like the other islands, is surrounded by very 

 high and almost perpendicular cliffs, which show occasional bright 

 red and yellow patches. These patches prove to consist of basalt- 

 agglomerate at Cape Wadworth, the northern end, and it is prob- 

 able, therefore, that the coloured bands on Cape Anne consist of 

 the same rock. The 'Southern Cross' obtained a hornblende- 

 basalt, and the ' Discovery's ' collection includes a specimen from 



