SCENERY AND TOPOGRAPHY 



tions from three hundred feet down to one hundred 

 and twenty feet above sea level. (See Figure 8.) 



The cliffs around Granite Harbor and on the Kukri 

 Hills were given special attention, to see how they had 

 been affected by the glacial covering which had just 

 receded from them. They were generally formed of 

 granite and w^ere characterized by a pronounced shoul- 

 der between the upland surface and the cliff proper. 

 Everywhere were couloirs or gullies either snow- 

 filled or empty. Usually these widened at the top, and 

 their sides were covered with fragments of the ad- 

 jacent rock. On sunny days they often contained a 

 considerable amount of thaw water which carried down 

 a slushy mixture of stones, gravel and snow. In my 

 opinion we have here the initial conditions which often 

 lead to the development of a cirque, if the general 

 temperature conditions remain satisfactory for a long 

 enough period. This problem, however, will be dis- 

 cussed at more length a little later. 



Only in one or two localities have caves been dis- 

 covered. The writer's party found one in Granite 

 Harbor which was about fifty feet high and thirty feet 

 deep. Priestley describes another from Robertson Bay. 

 They are obviously very rare on the east Antarctic 

 coasts. 



Lakes and Tarns. — To the student of erosion, lakes 

 indicate an interruption in the normal cycle, and in a 

 glaciated region they are of special interest for even 

 if frozen they show that relatively large masses of 

 fresh water are possible in the region. We observed 

 many types of lakes or tarns. In the ground moraine 



117 



