132 THE ANTARCTIC. 



III. CONFORMATION OF THE SURFACE 

 AND GEOLOGICAL STRUCTURE. 



It has been seen in our survey of Antarctic exploration 

 how land has been gradually found in South Polar 

 regions, and almost entirely during the present century ; 

 also how the conception of a great Terra australis in- 

 cognita has been proved to be equally erroneous with 

 the conjecture that no land whatever, or of only trifling 

 extent, was to be found ; so that the whole Antarctic 

 region might be regarded as one vast southern sea, in 

 which the three great oceans of our globe mingle their 

 boundless waters — an opinion defended by Florien in the 

 last century, and by Petermann and Peschel in this. It has 

 been proved, on the contrary, that extensive masses of land 

 exist near the Antarctic circle and to the south of it, and 

 other circumstances, pre-eminently the distribution of the 

 winds and of the drift-ice, point to the probability that con- 

 tinued exploration will lead to extended discovery of land. 



If we look at the map of the regions round the South 

 Pole, it is obvious that the land — always excepting the 

 smaller isolated islands lying to the north of the 6oth 

 parallel of south latitude — falls into three clearly defined 

 groups. Within these the contiguity of the land seen and 

 discovered at various times leads to the conjecture that 

 it is connected, and that certainly in a wider sense it may 

 in each instance be regarded as forming a geological whole. 

 These three groups, already noticed in the chapters on. 

 the situation and limits of Antarctic countries, are : — 



i. Peter I. Island, Alexander Land, Graham's Land, 

 the Dirk Gerritz Archipelago, the South Shetland, and 

 the South Orkney Islands. 



2. Enderby and Kemp Land. 



