chap, vi LOW SOUND 93 



the stream from Bolter Pass, we came to what seemed 

 a very curious region, just below the great bulging snout 

 of a glacier, descending from the west, out of a large cirque 

 cut back into the western plateau. Before describing the 

 phenomenon which we here encountered for the first time, I 

 may take this opportunity of mentioning that all the glaciers 

 in Spitsbergen differ from Alpine glaciers in respect of their 

 appearance of viscosity. Alpine glaciers look like flowing 

 things when seen from suitable points of view, but Spits- 

 bergen glaciers have a much more viscous appearance, they 

 bulge over and spread out at the snout as if they were made 

 of honey. They flow, too, down very gentle slopes, and 

 their surfaces are always very flat ; if curved at all from side 

 to side, the curvature is too slight to be noticed. Their 

 rate of flow may be much more rapid than that of Alpine 

 glaciers. 



This particular glacier was unusually steep, and there- 

 fore ended in a snout of unusual height, which bulged 

 over in a threatening manner. At its foot was a curious 

 icy area, unlike anything we had ever seen below the snout 

 of a glacier in any part of the world. It was what we 

 called, and what, I believe, is already known technically as, 

 an ice-foot. An ice-foot is formed by the percolation of 

 the glacier stream through the mass of snow that accumu- 

 lates during the winter below the glacier's foot. This snow 

 becomes completely sodden, and is frozen into a solid 

 mass of ice. Often more ice is thus formed in a year 

 than is melted. Later in the season we came across the 

 most amorphous ice-masses, which proved to be remains of 

 the spring ice-foot. After the ice-foot has been formed, the 

 glacier stream flows over it, about the time of the early 

 thaws, and cuts channels into it, which renewed snow-falls 

 block, so that they are constantly being changed. Pools are 

 thus made in places, and these at times freeze solid, gene- 



