Page:Polar Exploration - Bruce - 1911.djvu/23

Rh that the depth of the North Polar Basin is more or less equal to the height of the Antarctic continent.

Ross, Wilkes, D'Urville, Biscoe, Kemp, Palmer, Johnson and Morell all made important land discoveries previous to 1844. Since that time the most important land discovery was Coats Land, which not only filled up a gap between Enderby Land and New South Greenland, but which placed the edge of the Antarctic continent 500 miles farther north than Murray and others had mapped it. Of the interior of the Antarctic continent we know but little; the pioneer journey of Armitage, at an altitude of 9,000 feet, gave us our first insight into the nature and extent of the continental ice cap of which we have further knowledge from the journeys of Scott, Shackleton and David. (The Heart of the Antarctic, Sir E. H. Shackleton: London, 1910.)

There are two theories regarding the Antarctic continent: one, that it is one continuous land mass; the other, that it is divided by a channel from the Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea. To my mind all the evidence points to one land mass, and for the following reasons, although it should be noted that Prof. Penck and others adhere to a belief in two. Looking at the map we will find that the outline of the south of South America is almost the