434 SCIENTIFIC ADVANTAGES OF AN ANTARCTIC EXPEDITION. 



results brought home by Sir James Ross one of the most thrilling 

 features was the discovery of a snowy volcanic cone rising amid the 

 universal snows of Victoria Land to a height of more than 12,000 feet, 

 and actively discharging "flame and smoke," while other lofty cones 

 near it indicated that they too had once been in vigorous eruption. 

 Ross landed on one or two islands near that coast, and brought away 

 some pieces of volcanic rocks. 



If we glance at a terrestrial globe, we can readily see that the volcanic 

 ring or "circle of fire," which nearly surrounds the vast basin of the 

 Pacific Ocean, is prolonged southward into New Zealand. The few 

 observations that have been made in the scattered islands farther south 

 show that the Auckland, Campbell, and Macquarrie groups consist of, 

 or at least include, materials of volcanic origin. Still farther south, 

 along the same general line, Mr. Borchgreviuk has recently (1894-95) 

 made known the extension of Ross's volcanic platform northward to 

 Cape Adare, the northern promontory of Victoria Land. He noticed 

 there the apparent intercalation of lava and ice, while bare snowless 

 peaks seemed still farther to point to the continued activity of the vol- 

 canic fires. Some specimens brought by his expedition from Possession 

 Island were found by Mr. Teall to be highly vesicular hornblende 

 basalt, while one from Cape Adare was a nepheline tephrite. This 

 region is probably one of the most interesting volcanic tracts on the 

 face of the globe. Yet we can hardly be said to know more of it than 

 its mere existence. The deeply interesting problems which it suggests 

 can not be worked out by transitory voyagers. They must be attacked 

 by observers stationed on the spot. Ross thought that a winter station 

 might be established near the foot of Mount Erebus, and that the 

 interior could easily be traversed from there to the magnetic pole. 



But it is not merely in Victoria Land that Antarctic volcanoes may 

 be studied. Looking again at the globe, we observe that the American 

 volcanic band is prolonged in a north and south line down the western 

 side of the southern continent. That it has been continued into the 

 chain of the South Shetlands and Graham Land is proved by the 

 occurrence there of old sheets of basalt, rising in terraces over each 

 other, sometimes to a height of more than 7,000 feet above the sea. 

 These denuded lavas may be as old as those of our western isles — 

 Faroe, Iceland, and Greenland. But that volcanic activity is not 

 extinct there has recently been found by Captain Larsen, who came 

 upon a group of small volcanoes forming islets along the eastern coast 

 line of Graham Laud. It is tantalizing to know no more about them. 



Another geological field where much fresh and important information 

 might be obtained by Antarctic exploration is that of ice and ice action. 

 Our northern hemisphere was once enveloped in snow and ice, and 

 though for more than half a century geologists have been studying the 

 traces of the operations of this ice covering, they are still far from 

 having cleared up all the difficulties of the study. The Antarctic ice 



