222 THE ANTARCTIC. 



the land in Peacock Bay, which does not amount to nearly 

 the half at a greater distance, calls to mind the state of 

 things in Ross Sea near the great ice barrier. From 

 those two soundings it might be inferred that Peacock 

 Bay was shut off in the north by a rise in the sea bottom, 

 whose proximate cause might be the accumulation of glacial 

 debris ; but it is questionable whether such an enormous 

 terminal moraine may readily be ascribed to such an 

 accumulation. 



The position of Wilkes Land, as compared with 

 Victoria Land, is supremely interesting, especially as 

 these two most extensive of all the known coasts of the 

 Antarctic regions exhibit, in consequence of the existence 

 of volcanoes, distinctly different characters, both techtonic, 

 geological and orographic. It will be specially incumbent 

 on future discoverers to fill up the gap in the coast line 

 between Wilkes Land and Victoria Land ; indeed an 

 accurate survey of Wilkes Land alone would be of great 

 value in order finally either to justify or remove the doubts 

 entertained about the credibility of Wilkes' communica- 

 tions. It must be admitted that for passing the winter in 

 ships this coast would be hardly more suitable than that of 

 Victoria Land, and for an overland journey to the mag- 

 netic pole, such as stands on the programme of future 

 explorers, the coast of Wilkes Land is probably at too 

 great a distance. This theory is based on the supposition, 

 which certainly is not yet proved, that Victoria Land as 

 well as Wilkes Land are not proportionately narrow islands 

 or chains of islands, but the termination of extensive, 

 possibly connected, lands at their rear; in fact this question 

 is intimately connected with the problem of an Antarctic 

 continent, which can be definitively solved only by future 

 explorations. At a subsequent stage we shall show that 

 the prevailing winds, atmospheric pressure, the distribution 

 of the ice, combined with what is known of the geological 

 structure of the Antarctic lands, all tend to support a high 



