TOPOGRAPHY OF SOUTH VICTORIA LAND (ANTARCTIC), 503 
scooped out of the volcanic rock, was of grey granite, and about 10 feet 
in girth; some other boulders were of a green formation resembling 
diorite. In the eroded beds, and among the débris, we found numerous 
pieces of quartz with bluish streaks running through them. I was 
especially struck by its resemblance to some auriferous quartz met with 
in Australia. We also picked up pieces of pink and red granite, and a 
hard greyish stone of the consistency of flint. 
I wish to refer here to a statement made after the return from the 
south polar seas of the whaling ship Antarctic in 1895, to the effect that 
“the intercalation of lava and ice had been observed at Cape Adare, 
and that in one place the lava-flow appeared quite fresh.” This state- 
ment has been very widely accepted as authentic. Sir Archibald 
Geikie has referred to it in numerous geological papers, more 
especially in his address before the Antarctic Congress in 1898. Dr. 
Karl Fricker also makes mention of it in his work on the antarctic 
regions. Unfortunately, the statement is absolutely without foundation, 
for there is no sign of the intercalation of lava and ice in the old 
eruptive formation at Cape Adare, nor anywhere else along the coasts 
of South Victoria Land, unless it be in the vicinity of Mount Erebus. 
As we are dealing here exclusively with the topography of the 
antarctic lands, I will pass over everything which is not related to the 
subject. On August 14, 1899, a sledge party set out from the hut at 
Cape Adare for the purpose of exploring the southern extremity of 
Robertson bay. No doubt it would have proved more valuable and in- 
teresting to have investigated the shore-line in the direction of Smith’s 
inlet and Cape North, and examined closely the whole contour, which 
might have yielded geographical and geological discoveries of much 
value. Besides this, the accurate astronomical positions of headlands, 
inlets, glaciers, etc., could have been laid down, and soundings taken 
through the numerous open seal-holes. We reached what we thought 
to be our destination very late at night, and camped between two walls 
of ice. These walls of ice puzzled us considerably, and it was not until 
the following morning, when we had climbed to the summit of one of 
these barriers and were able to get a view of our surroundings, that we 
discovered we had steered a wrong course during the previous night, 
and, in the darkness, had run into a kind of inlet between two huge 
tongues of ice 5 or 6 miles further down the coast—a veritable cul-de-sac. 
These tongues of ice, which were the seaward prolongation of two 
great rivers of compact crystalline ice creeping down from the deep 
mantle of snow and ice enveloping that polar land, extended out into 
the bay for a distance of 3 miles, and were, perhaps, half a mile broad. 
Two glaciers traversing convergent valleys united at a point about 
G miles above one of these tongues, and the lateral moraine stuff, which 
could be easily traced on one side of each, coalesced and formed a broad 
and conspicuous medial moraine down the centre. Much of the moraine 
