Abstract
THE National Antarctic Expedition is to be congratulated upon the care and promptitude with which its scientific collections are being worked out by the staff of the Natural History Museum. The results are being issued with the fulness of illustration and the excellent form characteristics of the publications of that institution. The work has been thoroughly supervised and edited. The first volume has a general preface by Sir Ray Lankester, and a special preface by Mr. Fletcher, in whose department the work of this volume was executed; the biological work is being edited by Mr. Jeffrey Bell. The first volume deals with the geological work of the expedition, and contains two reports. The first, by Mr. H. T. Ferrar, records his observations upon the stratigraphical and glacial geology. It is accompanied by a valuable geological map of the district around MacMurdo Sound, based on the topographical survey by Lieut. Mulock, and by an admirable series of photographs, that are a valuable supplement to the text, but by whom they were taken is not stated. The geological specimens obtained were mainly collected near the Discovery's winter quarters, and on the opposite part of the mainland. The extended field observations and the large amount of material collected are clearly the result of most indefatigable and courageous work, under difficult and dangerous conditions, and are a most important addition to Antarctic geology. The geological formations at MacMurdo Bay are divided by Mr. Ferrar into four series: the recent volcanic rocks of the islands; the gneiss and granite that form the foot hills and the basement of the mainland plateau; a wide series of horizontal sandstones, the Beacon Sandstones, that form the plateau of southern Victoria Land; and some dolerite sills intrusive into the Beacon Sandstones. Unfortunately there is no definite evidence as to the age of these sandstones. Some plant remains were found in them, and are described by Mr. Arber, according to whom they are “unfortunately of little value botanically”; he calls them “carbonaceous impressions,” “which in all probability are of vegetable origin.” Mr. Arber concludes that the specimens “neither permit of any opinion as to the botanical nature or affinities of the fossils themselves, nor of the geological age of the beds in which they occur.” Considering the extent and abundant exposure of these sandstones, the apparent rarity of organic remains in them is significant, Mr. Ferrar devotes three chapters to glacial observations, and describes Ross's ice barrier as a Piedmont glacier, formed of confluent flows of land ice. The evidence offered in support of this conclusion is not very convincing, but until the issue of the meteorological data collected by the expedition, it is better to suspend judgment upon this question; and it may be hoped that Lieutenant Shackleton's expedition will collect further information as to the intimate structure of this ice.
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GREGORY, J. The Geology of South Victoria Land . Nature 77, 561–562 (1908). https://doi.org/10.1038/077561a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/077561a0