SCIENTIFIC RESULTS 



the present sea-level, I secured numerous specimens of 

 amphipods, and sea-spiders, and one small fish, all in a 

 much desiccated condition. It is not necessary to postulate 

 a recent rise in the level of the land to account for these 

 specimens, since, in the short period when the sea is re- 

 leased from the control of its icy winter covering, a strong 

 wind blowing directly into the bay would inevitably cause 

 a rise in the level of the water sufficient to assure the 

 submergence of those portions of the mud-flats immedi- 

 ately adjacent to the ice-foot. Upon the recession of the 

 sea, numerous animals would be left stranded in any slight 

 depression in the recently covered flats, and evaporation 

 and ablation would remove the sea water during the late 

 summer and autumn, leaving the desiccated remains of the 

 animals and giving rise to an efflorescence of salt on the 

 surface of the mud. Indeed, this sequence of events might 

 very well have been caused by the very blizzard which 

 raged from February 20 to the 22nd, 1908, when the 

 Nimrod was driven north. 



The remaining features of the Dry Valley moraines 

 are very much a repetition of those of the stranded 

 moraines, but on a much larger scale. I was unfortunately 

 only able in the hmited time at my disposal to cursorily 

 examine a few square miles of the moraines, and in my 

 longest excursion only penetrated three or four miles in- 

 land. This particular walk, however, resulted in one inter- 

 esting observation, for I reached a height of between five 

 hundred and six hundred feet, and found that the abund- 

 ance of what might be called erratics foreign to the valley, 

 namely, kenyte and basalt and fragmental rocks apper- 

 taining to these two types, had in no wise diminished in 

 quantity, their proportion to those rocks which obviously 

 might have been derived from the sides of the valley or 

 from the higher reaches of the glacier remaining much 

 the same as at sea-level. 



347 



