GRAHAM'S AND ALEXANDER LANDS. 191 



are wholly uninformed about the geological structure of 

 this newly-discovered country, and even about the varying 

 depths along the coast. We must meanwhile be content 

 with the knowledge of the existence of an extensive tract 

 of land. 



Still less do we know about the west coast of Graham's 

 Land. Biscoe only tells us that the country is elevated, 

 continuous, and, in his opinion, extensive. The published 

 narrative of Dallmann's voyage, as well as that of Evensen, 

 leave us wholly in the lurch with respect to Graham's Land. 

 Biscoe gives us scanty information only about the islands 

 he has discovered, but he has made several valuable 

 soundings. Pitt Island, which is the northernmost of 

 the group, abounds in bays, and may well be designated by 

 the epithet, the " Elevated Snow Land," which Evensen 

 applies to the southern members of the group. Adelaide 

 Island, situated at a great distance from the rest of the 

 group, is the highest of them all. It is formed by a 

 mountain chain about four miles in extent, from which 

 a very high summit rises in a steep ascent. Biscoe seems 

 to have found the mountain tops partly free from ice, whilst 

 the lower regions were wholly glaciated, and terminated 

 at the coast in an icy barrier 10 to 12 feet high, the tops 

 of which were rent by large clefts. The soundings off 

 Adelaide Island yielded very peculiar results. At a dis- 

 tance of about three miles from the coast a line of 1,500 

 feet failed to touch bottom. This isolated, steep and 

 lofty island may possibly also be of volcanic origin. 



Alexander Land, finally, which Bellingshausen only 

 sighted from a distance of about forty-five miles, is de- 

 scribed as an elevated snow-clad region ; nevertheless, he 

 imagined that in places he had noticed the rocky subsoil 

 projecting from amidst the ice. 



To Alexander Land are joined in the west, but at a 

 great distance, lands that have been sighted or conjectured, 

 the extreme outposts of our geographical knowledge in the 



