348 APPENDIX. No. XVI. 



an ice-cap, whose blue, jagged edge lying flush with the face of 

 the cliffs we estimated at a thickness of forty feet. The cliffs 

 of the south-west shore of the fiord presented a similar ice-cap, 

 but of greater extent, as it began about ten miles to the 

 southward of Cape Lucie Marie, i.e. on the south side of the 

 first glacier, and was continuous to the southward as far as 

 the cliffs were seen to extend. 



From both sides the ice seemed to be flowing steadily over 

 the cliffs, as evidenced by frequent avalanches in which great 

 masses of the ice-cap projecting over the precipices became 

 detached, and carrying with them in their descent masses of 

 rock torn from the face of the cliffs, came thundering down 

 to the floe, marking their flight by dense clouds of snow, and 

 accompanied by a long series of echoes, creating a most grand 

 and imposing spectacle. Some idea of the force with which 

 these avalanches came down may be gathered from the fact 

 that large stones were projected on to the floe to a distance of 

 eighty yards from the foot of the perpendicular walls of rock. 



At this third camp, the furthest position to which with 

 our disabled sledge and unsuitable equipments we could move 

 our baggage, we spent three days devoted to walking ex- 

 cursions. The greatest distance up the fiord to which we 

 could proceed was six miles from camp, and to attain this 

 distance we had to run some risks of falling through hidden 

 crevasses, and slipping from high ice slopes into water- 

 chasms ; so that we had to content ourselves with making our 

 furthest look-out point on the summit of an ice-pinnacle 

 eighteen and a half miles from Offley Island. 



About one mile from us was the nearest glacier of the 

 north-east shore, two miles beyond it a second, and half a mile 

 further on a third. We had found, as we approached these 

 glaciers, that the main ice of the fiord became more and 

 more fissured, and that the faults in the continuity of the 

 ridges and the furrows were more frequent and embarrassing ; 

 but from the eminence now attained it seemed that these 

 glaciers were the nuclei of disruptions of the main ice, and 

 hence the progressively increasing difficulties of travelling. 



