GEOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS 



to altitudes of from 8000 up to 12,000 ft. Throughout 

 its entire length from Cape North and the mountains re- 

 cently discovered by our expedition further west, down 

 to the parallel of 86° South, a distance of about 1100 

 miles, the ranges form a slightly elevated border to an 

 inland plateau. The continuity of these plateau ranges 

 is interrupted at intervals by wide valley-like depressions, 

 occupied by vast glaciers. These glaciers slope steeply 

 to the sea, or to the surface of the Great Barrier, and are 

 heavily crevassed. Further inland they ascend by gentle 

 slopes, interrupted occasionally by ice-falls, to the neve 

 fields of the plateau. 



As one traces the coast-line northwards, from opposite 

 Ross Island in the direction in which the Northern Party 

 travelled to the South Magnetic Pole, one encounters 

 some very remarkable features which materially modify 

 the form of the coast-line. The first of these is called on 

 the chart of the Antarctic Ocean, prepared from observa- 

 tions under the direction of Captain R. F. Scott, the 

 Nordenskjold Ice Barrier Tongue. It is about six miles 

 in width, and projects twenty miles or more seawards 

 from the coast-line. There is reason to suppose that this 

 Barrier, as well as the one just to be described, is floating 

 at its seaward extremity. 



North of the Nordenskjold Barrier is the Drygalski 

 Barrier or Ice Tongue. This is a huge glacier actively 

 moving forwards into the sea. It is a true glacier at its 

 landward end, with immense seracs, ridges and crevasses. 

 The portion which projects seawards beyond the coast is 

 about twenty miles in width, and thirty miles in length. 

 Towards its seaward end, and also on its northern side, 

 where it receives the bulk of the snow drifted by southerly 

 blizzards, it partakes rather of a flat-topped barrier type 

 than of the glacier type with its characteristic rugged 

 surface. 



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