268 Notices of Memoirs — Antarctic Exploration. 



discovei'ed in our area. The outcrop of its parent-bed is about 

 50 miles distant in a straight line from Old North Koad Station. 

 The Boulder-claj, where it was found, is said by Professor Bonney 

 (" Camb. Geol.j" p. 49) to be 160 feet thick, as seen in the cutting 

 and well. 



From the presence in the Cambridgeshire Boulder-clay of frag- 

 ments of the Bed Chalk and Carstone, and from the general invasion 

 of the outcrops of beds to the south by the materials of beds to the 

 north or north-east, it has been inferred that the direction of move- 

 ment of the agent of transportation was towards the south ; and the 

 occurrence of this boulder of Spilsby Sandstone is strongly in favour 

 of this view. But in spite of this evidence for its support it cannot 

 be said that this theory is completely satisfactory, for it fails to 

 explain the reason of the extremely miscellaneous character of the 

 majority of the non-local rocks in the Boulder-clay, and the dis- 

 tribution of the deposit in relation to the configuration of the 

 country, whether we consider the transporting agent to have been 

 land-ice, icebergs, or an ice-foot. 



Facts and Arguments in favour of an Antarctic Expedition. 



IN advocating " The Scientific Advantages of an Antarctic Expe- 

 dition " before the Roj'^al Society in February last,' Dr. John 

 Murray, F.E.S. (now Sir John Murray, K.C.B., F.K.S.), said :— 



" From a scientific point of view the advantages to be derived 

 from a well-equipped and well-directed expedition to the Antarctic 

 w^ould, at the present time, be manifold. Every department of 

 natural knowledge would be enriched by systematic observations 

 as to the order in which phenomena coexist and follow each other, 

 in regions of the earth's surface about which we know very little or 

 are wholly ignorant. It is one of the great objects of science to 

 collect observations of the kind here indicated, and it may be safely 

 said that without them we can never arrive at a right understanding 

 of the phenomena by wliich we are surrounded, even in the habitable 

 parts of the globe. 



" Before considering the various orders of phenomena concerning 

 which fuller information is urgently desired, it may be well to point 

 out a fundamental topographical difference between the Arctic and 

 Antarctic. In the northern hemisphere there is a polar sea almost 

 completely surrounded by continental land, and continental conditions 

 for the most part prevail. In the southern hemisphere, on the other 

 hand, there is almost certainly a continent at the South Pole, which 

 is completely surrounded by the ocean, and, in those latitudes, the 

 most simple and extended oceanic conditions on the surface of the 

 globe are encountered." 



The author then proceeds to discuss the Meteorology. 



V Proceedings of the Eoyal Society, vol. Ixii, jSTo. 387, pp. 424-451, Feb. 24, 1898. 



