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SCIENCE. 



[N. S. Vol. III. No. 61. 



especially, has been strenuous in upholding 

 the actuality of such a continent, but to the 

 present time it cannot be said that its ex- 

 istence has been demonstrated. A number 

 of considerations speak in favor of it, but 

 many more facts than we now possess will 

 be needed before anything like a satisfac- 

 tory determination of this question can be 

 assumed. It is significant in this connec- 

 tion that both Ross and Petermann, to 

 whom as explorer and student we owe the 

 better part of our knowledge of Antarctica, 

 inclined their views against the existence of 

 such a southern continent. In their opin- 

 ions the reported land masses are of an is- 

 land character, bound together perhaps not 

 even permanently, by a vast (frequently 

 shifting?) ice pack, the edge of which (only 

 in small part the terminal wall of giant 

 glaciers) is the ' great Antarctic barrier ' of 

 geographers and navigators. How far the 

 vertical icebarrier is confluent with the 

 cemented pack remains yet to be de- 

 termined. 



The only important addition to our 

 knowledge of true Antarctica that has been 

 made since Ross's voyage belongs to the 

 close of the year 1893, when Larsen pene- 

 trated, in the region of the Graham Land 

 complex, to Lat. 68° 10' S., and brought 

 back with him a ' departure ' in the geolog- 

 ical concept of the region under considera- 

 tion. The finding of Tertiary fossils (Cy- 

 therea, ISTatica, etc.,) on Seymour Island 

 (Cape Seymour) is the opening vista in an 

 investigation which has heretofore been 

 considered closed, and at once affords, to 

 use a business term, a basis for considera- 

 tion. Not less significant is the finding at 

 the same locality of an abundance of tree- 

 remains (conifers — -Arancaria ? ) . These 

 fragments at least show that some part of 

 Antarctica was of the same kind of con- 

 struction as the continents generally, and 

 their special facies immediately suggests a 

 South American relationship. Previous to 



1893 the only rocks known from the ice- 

 bound region of the far South were gran- 

 ites, gneisses (and related schists), the 

 strictly eruptive and trappean rocks, and 

 certain red sandstones (Piner's Island — 

 Triassic ?) from a very limited area. Most 

 (and perhaps nearly all) of the higher 

 mountains are distinctly of a volcanic na- 

 ture, and many of them bear huge craters 

 on their summits. Ross found Erebus in 

 eruption at the time of his visit (1841), 

 and Larsen found the mountains of Christ- 

 ensen and Lindenberg Islands similarly 

 active in 1893-94. Borchgrevink, who 

 sailed over a portion of Ross's course in 

 1894-95, attaining off Victoria Land, with 

 clear water ahead of him, Lat. 74° S., con- 

 firms in almost every detail the observa- 

 tions of his predecessor, adding some addi- 

 tional facts regarding the large glaciers 

 which descend from the heights of the Sa- 

 bine Mountains. He was the first to set 

 foot on the mainland (or main island) of 

 Antarctica, and to him science also owes 

 the first discoveiy within this realm of a 

 rock-covering vegetation (lichens ? — on Pos- 

 session Island and Cape Adare). 



It can hardly be said that we know much 

 regarding either the source or the nature of 

 the vast ice mass which makes up nearly 

 the whole of visible Antarctica; it may or 

 may not be in principal part of glacial con- 

 struction; it may be largely or mainly an 

 ocean-surface accumulation, extending back 

 in its formation through hundreds or thou- 

 sands of years. Until we know what is be- 

 low or behind it, this question will remain 

 unanswered. Giant glaciers there are, and 

 an abundance of them; but over enormous 

 expanses, where the ice barrier presents an 

 impassable front, no visible distant ice cap, 

 like the one of Greenland, has been de- 

 tected. 



In its relations to the other continents 

 there is reason to believe that Antarctica, 

 whether as a continent or in fragmented 



