OLDER MORAINES OF VICTORIA LAND 265 



median moraine of the Buckley Nunatak. But in addition to these recent moraines 

 older moraines extend to at least 200 feet above the glacier in many places, and in 

 the case of Mount Hope, at the junction of the Beardmore Glacier with the Ross 

 Barrier, the erratics and the moraine are actually found capping the gi-anite top of 

 the mountain at a level of no less than 2000 feet above that of the adjacent glacier 

 ice. Mention was made in Chapter IV. of moraine occurring on top of Cape Irizar 

 at the north end of Lamplugh Island, at about 500 feet above the level of the 

 adjacent Clarke Glacier. 



Three small striated boulders are shown on Plate LXXXVI. Fig. 2, two from tlie 

 ancient moraines of Cape Irizar, and one from an old moraine near the west side 

 of the Beardmore Glacier, just south of its junction with the Ross Barrier. 



The general absence of true till, in the sense of a tenacious boulder clay, seemed 

 to us remarkable. Its absence may be due to the fact that deglaciation has not yet 

 progressed sufficiently far to reveal "till" under the piedmont or glacier ice, or 

 perhaps the sandy nature of the Beacon Sandstone — that most ubiquitous of the 

 Ross area formations — and the friable character of the kenytes may be inimical 

 to the formation of a true boulder clay or till. 



Certainly near Cape Royds, in this intensely glaciated region once 800 to 1000 

 feet under ice, the moraine which there may be termed bottom or groimd moraine 

 [moraine profonde) seldom exceeded a thickness of more than a few feet. The 

 bedrock was everywhere close beneath it. 



