THE HEART OF THE ANTARCTIC 



and kenytic debris on the seaward side, the local boulders 

 becoming more common as the landward side is ap- 

 proached, though at the northern end of the moraines 

 these boulders become very numerous even on the extreme 

 seaward side." 



An important characteristic in addition to those already 

 noted is the very isolated occurrence of some of the 

 erratics. 



Some small conical heaps consisting entirely of frag- 

 ments of one kind of rock were undoubtedly, from the 

 angular nature of the fragments, the final results of the 

 frost weathering of very large original blocks. Not so 

 in all cases, however. In the case of one basalt tuff 

 particularly I noticed that it was found entirely covering 

 two or three small hills at the south-eastern corner of the 

 moraines, and I found it nowhere else. The pieces were 

 all rounded or subangular and they were too scattered to 

 have been the result of the weathering of a few large 

 boulders. 



I have noticed in my diary a similar occurrence of 

 olivine basalt on one of the mounds fringing the Terraced 

 Lake at Cape Barne, within two miles of winter quarters. 



One fact points to recent elevation of these moraines. 

 At the north-eastern end of the moraines a number of 

 flat-topped hills and ridges were of the same height and 

 all capped by several inches of a brownish deposit which 

 proved, on examination, to be a fungus similar to those 

 found in the lakes at winter quarters. The whole district 

 seems, therefore, to have been at quite a recent date a lake 

 bed. The lake has been elevated and drained, and its bed 

 has been dissected by streams, whilst the higher land which 

 formerly existed to the east and constituted the boundary 

 of the lake, has been worn down and removed during the 

 recent elevation of the moraines by a combination of the 

 successive summer thaws and marine erosion. 



344 



