SOUTH ORKNEY ISLANDS. 155 



its characteristics than the South Shetland Isles. The 

 oreatest elevations are found in the east, where a 

 mountain above 5,000 feet high is said to rise above Cape 

 Bennett, the north-eastern point of the island ; towards 

 the west they are lower and flatter, all, however, equally 

 buried in ice and snow. On the east coast a small fjord- 

 like bay penetrates into the land, Spence Harbour, and 

 glaciers here descend from all sides. According to 

 Powell's account, they nevertheless do not reach the 

 water, but leave a margin of some feet quite clear, even 

 apparently at high water. It is otherwise in the north- 

 west where the mass of ice, gradually descending from a 

 lower region, forms an abrupt perpendicular ice barrier 

 as coast line. The island is probably from thirty-seven 

 to forty miles in length, and has an extreme breadth of 

 from fifteen to eighteen miles with an area of 560 to 625 

 square miles. 



The island group is surrounded at some considerable 

 distance by single isolated rocks of which the largest 

 and most distant project longitudinally towards the west. 

 These are the Inaccessible Rocks in latitude 6o° 42' S. 

 and longitude 47° 12' W., three in number, and completely 

 inaccessible islets of diminutive size, probably like the 

 others evidences of a previous extension of the principal 

 islands. The action of the strong surf has here been 

 increased beyond that of the eastern side by the prevalent 

 west winds, the westward current, and the action of the 

 floating ice. 



5. THE SOUTH SHETLAND ISLANDS. 



Considerably more extensive than the South Orkney 

 Isles is their western continuation, the widely spread 

 group of the South Shetlands, the first Antarctic discovery 

 of the nineteenth century. Situated between the fifty- 

 third and sixty-third meridians of west longitude, and 



