TOPOGRAPHY OF SOUTH VICTORIA LAND (ANTARCTIC), 501 
have appeared in the recent publication, ‘ First on the Antarctic Con- 
tinent,’ in a somewhat quaint and unusual form. 
The following day being fine, the land was plainly visible. It was 
not more than 40 miles from us, and was covered with vast piles of snow 
which never melts, and seems destined to last as long as the world holds 
together. At the east end of the island a high cape fell perpendicularly 
into the sea. The west end sloped up gradually from the water’s edge. 
to a lofty peak (Russel peak), which, as far as could be estimated, was 
10,000 feet high, and, where not covered with snow, terminated in sharp 
and jagged ridges of a very dark colour. The whole range was of a 
serrated nature, and the snow-cap extended to the water’s edge, whereas 
on the land we had sighted a few days back it did not. The whole of 
the north side presented to our view was precipitous, and in some places 
cliffs between 500 and 1000 feet high fell sheer into the sea; it would 
have been vain to attempt a landing. 
On February 17, Cape Adare (lat. 71° 18' 8.) was reached, a cape of 
a very dark basaltic appearance, with scarcely any snow lying upon 
it, thus forming a strong contrast to the rest of the snow-covered coast. 
This lack of snow is principally due to the very exposed position of the 
cape to the south-east winds, and perhaps also to the steep and smooth 
nature of its sides, which afford no hold for any snowfall. The most 
striking features of this new world were its stillness and deadness, and 
impassibility. No token of vitality anywhere; nothing to be seen on 
the steep sides of the mountains but rock and ice. Here and there 
enormous glaciers fell into the sea, the extremities of some many miles 
in width. Afterwards, when the mist had cleared away, more than a 
dozen were counted around Robertson bay. As we approached, the 
sounding-line was kept going, but there was deep water close in to the 
shore. Indeed, there is little danger of finding banks or outlying sub- 
merged rocks anywhere along the coast of South Victoria Land. The 
“ Dunraven rocks,” indicated on Ross’s chart as lying off Cape Adare, 
and over which, Ross states, the seas were breaking when he observed 
them, apparently do not exist; for, although a most careful search 
was made for them during the twelve months we were at Cape Adare, 
they were never seen. If they exist, they could not have failed to 
betray their presence during boisterous weather, Could it have been a 
large rotten submerged mass of ice that Ross mistook for rocks? With 
the exception of one place where a pebbly bank could be seen, basaltic 
cliffs rose sheer out of the water to an average height of about 500 feet. 
The place upon which we had landed was a triangular-shaped and 
undulating bank or platform of detritus, the centre of which was about 
20 feet above the water-level, and the whole area some 180 acres. It 
was formed of rounded boulders, pebbles, gravel, and, near the mountain- 
side, angular masses of débris. How this bank first came to be formed is 
difficult to determine for one who is no geologist; possibly it is the 
