Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/349

Rh February, remarks: "Not a particle of ice of any description was to be seen, the evening was mild and serene, and our situation might have been envied had it not been for the reflection that probably we should have obstacles to contend with in our passage through the ice northward." As regards the various eminences which have at different times been designated "land" (such as Kemp Land, Enderby Land, etc.), and which have so often been united together to form a continuous land mass, there is every reason to believe that many of them are merely islands, and even islands of inconsiderable extent. Thus, it is certain that if the positions assumed by Morrell and Biscoe for their respective vessels are true, then Biscoe must have sailed over a portion of what was subsequently designated Enderby Land (Enderby Island), The deceptive forms of ice have by nearly all polar navigators been at one time or another taken for rising land surface, a condition which makes doubtful the references to many of the "land "masses that have been made known to us. It is by no means unreasonable to assume, with Petermann, that Antarctica may yet prove to be a disjointed association of land and ice masses, purely archipelagic in form; in this sense, Victoria Land, which is to-day the most extensive tract known, may be merely a correspondent of the insular form of New Zealand.

The only important addition to our knowledge of true Antarctica that has been made since Ross's voyage belongs to the close of the year 1893, when Larsen penetrated, in the region of the Graham Land complex, to latitude 68° 10′ south, and brought back with him a "departure" in the geological concept of the region under consideration. The finding of Tertiary fossils (Cytherea, Natica, etc.) on Seymour Island (Cape Seymour) is the opening vista in an investigation which has heretofore been considered closed, and at once affords, to use a business term, a basis for consideration. Not less significant is the finding at the same locality of an abundance of tree remains (conifers, Araucaria?). These fragments at least show that some part of Antarctica was of the same kind of construction as the continents generally, and their special fades immediately suggests a South American relationship. Previous to 1893 the only rocks known from the ice-bound region of the far south were granites, gneisses, (and related schists), the strictly eruptive and trappean rocks, and certain red sandstones (Piner's Island—Triassic?) from a very limited area. Most (and perhaps nearly all) of the higher mountains are distinctly of a volcanic nature, and many of them bear huge craters on their summits. Ross found Erebus in eruption at the time of his visit (1841), and Larsen found the mountains of Christensen and Lindenberg Islands similarly active in 1893–’94. Kristensen and Borchgrevink, who sailed over a portion of Ross's