78 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



can be no reasonable doubt that they were at one time connected and are 

 in fact disunited parts of the same foldings. Nor does it appear doubtful, 

 any longer, that the line of former continuity can be traced by a submerged 

 ridge on which stand relics of the chain : in the South Orkneys, the 

 volcanic South Sandwich Group and South Georgia, extending in a great 

 arc between Trinity Land and Tierra del Fuego and sweeping well to the 

 east of Drake Strait. There is no doubt of this line of connection, but 

 we are still uncertain if South Georgia, and even more so, if the Falklands 

 are really fragments of the arc or relics of a lost South Atlantic Land. 



The Antarctic Andes, or Southern Antilles, have been traced 

 south-eastward but lost sight of at Alexander Island and Charcot Land, 

 which in all probability are parts of the same formation. The great 

 problem of the Antarctic is what happens to other ranges. On the 

 opposite, or New Zealand, side of the Antarctic the great fault ranges of 

 Victoria Land show little if any resemblance in structure and origin with 

 the Antarctic Andes. A great horst capped with horizontal layers of sand- 

 stone, probably of Permo-Carboniferous age, is associated with much 

 evidence of volcanic activity, and seems to rise from a great peneplain of 

 crystalline rocks which underlie the whole of that side of the Antarctic 

 ice-sheet. 



The structure of the Victoria Land edge of the Ross Sea is reminiscent 

 of Tasmania and eastern Australia, and the suggestion of former continuity 

 across the Southern Ocean receives further support from our knowledge 

 of submarine relief between Antarctica and Australia, especially the work 

 of the Aurora Expedition. 



The relationships between Antarctica and South Africa are still very 

 obscure since the African quadrant of the Antarctic, both by land and by 

 sea, remains one of the least explored parts. It will prove a fruitful area 

 for an expedition to tackle. 



It is unnecessary to enter into the details of the arguments in 

 geomorphology bearing on the relationships of the two contrasted sides of 

 Antarctica. I have recently expounded these at greater length elsewhere. 



Only further exploration can solve the mystery. We must go and 

 see if we want to know. But it may be of interest to state the possible 

 solutions. 



One suggestion is that the horst of Victoria Land is continuous 

 with the Antarctic Andes. Certainly the direction of the Maud 

 Mountains to the south of the Ross Sea supports this view, and evidence 

 of great faults bounding the Andes may show that those ranges after all 

 are not entirely different in nature from the ranges of Victoria Land. A 

 second suggestion is that the Antarctic Andes reappear in the Ross Sea 

 in the old crystalline rocks of King Edward Land — which as yet are but 

 little known — and that these were once continuous with the folds of New 

 Zealand. If this be true, the ranges of Victoria Land and the Maud 

 Mountains probably swing across to Coats Land and may cause those 

 vague shadowy shapes that a few of us who have seen Coats Land believe 

 to exist in its far interior. Nothing is known at first hand of the structure 

 of Coats Land, but rock fragments dredged in the Weddell Sea, and 

 presumably derived from Coats Land, suggest a closer relation with 

 Victoria than with Graham Land. 



