TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION b. 417 
It is in that region of the Weddell Sea where the doubtful Morrell Land or 
New South Greenland is placed. Without going into all the evidence regarding 
Morrell, this much I would like to say, that nobody has ever sailed over the 
position of Morrell Land, or disproved the position of it since it was first 
reported. Toss, a very cautious explorer, reported appearance of land about its 
northern extremity. The Scottish Expedition could not get into that region 
because of the heavy ice, but the soundings seemed to shelve towards Morrell 
Land. It is true that Lieut. Filchner reported that he disproved Morrell Land ; 
however, he did not go sufficiently far west to sight it, so his statement is of 
no value. 
The Weddell Sea has been very much neglected. The Ross Sea quarter has 
had great attention paid to it, probably because it is the nearest and most 
direct way to the Pole. 
Nobody has yet landed on Coats Land, nor on Leopold Land. There was no 
possibility of landing on the ice-cliff of Coats Land when the ‘Scotia’ dis- 
covered it in 1904; but there was no doubt whatever about that ice-cliff being 
a part of the ice-cap pouring off the continental land. The deep-sea soundings 
and deposits by themselves showed that, but what I would like to emphasise 
is this: that Coats Land seemed to rise in the interior to great heights, but 
we were not certain of the distance of these heights. Most of us, and particu- 
larly those with longer sight and more experience in polar seas, were convinced 
that this was the plateau rising into the interior to heights of perhaps 10,000 
or 15,000 feet. Future exploration will, I believe, confirm this. It is to be 
hoped that Sir Ernest Shackleton will be enabled to start on his trans-continental 
expedition, because he will score a new track across Antarctica, and incidentally 
will solve this problem of the structure of Antarctica towards the Weddell Sea. 
Dr. G. C. Stmpson : I desire to refer to only one matter connected with the 
Antarctic. I do not think we realise sufficiently that the southern hemisphere 
is much colder than the northern hemisphere, and the reason for this difference 
in temperature is certainly not understood by scientists. When we think of the 
temperature of a place, we think of the temperature in the lower atmosphere. 
Now the mere passage of light through the atmosphere will not warm it. The 
main method in which the atmosphere becomes warmed up is by the sun shining 
on something it can warm. Now, in the Northern Hemisphere there are large 
masses of land which can absorb the sun’s energy, and then give the heat to the 
atmosphere. In the Southern Hemisphere, on the contrary, the whole mass of 
land within the Antarctic continent is covered with ice which is practically 
a perfect reflector, and therefore when the sun shines on to it a large proportion 
of the energy is reflected into space. I do not think scientists have quite 
realised how important that is—that 5,000,000 square miles of the earth’s surface 
in the Southern Hemisphere reflect into space a large part of the energy received 
from the sun. I feel certain that this is one of the chief reasons for the 
difference in temperature between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. 
Mr. CHartes Hepiey: Naturalists have deduced the age, climate, contour, 
fauna and flora of Tertiary Antarctica from the nature of the Antarctic refugees 
now living in southern lands. Biologists note that many similar forms, either 
recent or fossil, are repeated in various southern islands or continents. For 
instance, there are the monotremes, once perhaps a numerous group, of which 
two widely different types survive in Australia, Tasmania, and Papua. The 
bones of other monotremes occur in South American deposits. Then there are 
the Thylacines, recent in Tasmania, and fossil in South America and Australia. 
Either we must consider that these groups arose independently in each 
hemisphere, or that they spread from the one to the other. In the latter case, 
a South Polar land offered the most direct way from home to home. The 
simplest explanation of the distribution of marsupials, past and present, is that 
they originated in South America, spread by way of Archihelenis to Western 
Europe, by way of the West Indies to North America, and by way of 
Antarctica to Australasia. / 
Turning to the Amphibia, both the Hylide and the Cystignathide have 
their chief seat in South America; both extend to Australasia, where they 
1914. EE 
