ANTARCTIC GEOLOGY 32 1 



A similar divide was crossed by David, Mawson, and Mackay 

 on the route to the magnetic pole, 180 miles inland from the coast. 

 This, however, is probably a meteorological rather than a geological 

 feature, and will be remarked upon in the next paper. 



The splendid achievement of Amundsen in reaching the south 

 pole by a new route pioneered by himself is an outstanding example 

 of the genius for organization and for polar travel possessed by one who 

 is undoubtedly the foremost of the present generation of polar travelers. 

 His contributions to Antarctic science, however, are far less complete. 

 One most serious shortcoming of the great journey was his failure 

 to spend easily spared time in making at least a general survey of 

 the geology of that most interesting portion of Antarctica it was his 

 good fortune and privilege to discover and traverse. In spite of having 

 "time to burn" — so much so that the hours of marching were volun- 

 tarily restricted and the hours spent in the tent extended until they 

 became burdensome — little attempt to survey the country was made. 

 The only specimens collected were a few pieces of muscovite-biotite 

 granite, granite gneiss, garnet aplite, and mica schist from Mt. Betty 

 (1000 ft.) in 85° 8' S. From the photographic evidence of Mt. Fridtjof 

 Nansen (15,000 feet) and our knowledge of the structure of the 

 coterminous Beardmore Glacier mountains it is a reasonable con- 

 jecture that the summit of this mountain is partly composed of Beacon 

 sandstone, but there is unfortunately no direct evidence of this. 



There is no more important object lesson to the geological party of 

 the future than that afforded by the contrast between the geological 

 harvest of the Scott and the Amundsen southern parties. On the one 

 hand we see debilitated men, buffeted by nature in her worst moods, 

 suffering under manifold disabilities due in part to ill fortune, in part 

 to their leader's errors, in part to a mistaken tradition as regards 

 modes of polar transport inherited from their predecessors in the 

 Arctic, destined in the event to leave their bodies as a mute witness 

 at the same time to the greatness of their spirit and the inadequacy 

 of the means they had employed. In a cairn within a few miles of their 

 last resting place their comrades later found a priceless bag of speci- 

 mens, collected, many of them, after the direness of the emergency 

 must have been realized. By their side lay the notebooks containing 

 the detailed notes, lacking which the specimens would have been 

 deprived of half their value. On the other hand, a few hundred miles 

 away and two months earlier, another party, secure in the attainment 

 of their dominant ideal, safe beyond any reasonable doubt from failure, 

 made a hurried traverse of a region more interesting because less well 

 known, returning to their base unwearied and ahead of scheduled 

 time, bearing with them a few fragments of rock from one or two 

 only of the many rock exposures on whose surfaces their eyes had 

 been the first to rest. 



