i 3 2 SPITSBERGEN chap, ix 



Grit Ridge and Mount Marmier, and the stream from this 

 cuts a deep gorge in the left marginal moraines and 

 boulder-clay piles of the Grit Ridge Glacier. My route inter- 

 posed this gorge between me and the direct ascent to Grit 

 Ridge. It was a gorge with precipitous sides of mixed 

 composition, sometimes cut down into the paper-shales 

 below, sometimes blocked by great boulders of hard rock 

 from Grit Ridge, sometimes falling by steps, over which 

 the water plunged in wild leaps. I made many ineffectual 

 attempts to cross it. Once when I was cutting steps down 

 the steep side wall of compact debris the whole thing gave 

 way, and down I went, only just arresting my fall at the top 

 of one of the cascades. I ultimately crossed by a rotten 

 ice-bridge. Garwood joined me on the glacier, and we went 

 forward together. We concluded that solitary rambling in 

 such regions is unwise. Sane persons do not ramble alone 

 in the upper regions of the Alps, but we had not yet come 

 to realise that wherever ice reigns, though it be but a few 

 feet above sea-level, precautions should be taken which 

 are beyond the resources of a single individual. This day 

 we had come out, as usual, without a rope. As will be 'seen, 

 we were destined to repent the omission. 



The surface of this glacier, like all others we had thus 

 far seen, was entirely and deeply covered with winter snow. 

 It became a question of wading, not of walking. Reindeer 

 tracks abounded, ascending even to the neves 1 and crossing 

 high ridges ; they were all fresh, doubtless indicating that 

 the warm weather was leading the beasts up to cooler feed- 

 ing-places. At all events, after the heat came, we no longer 

 saw any reindeer about camp, whereas before they had 

 been grazing around on all sides — a fact which, as will be 



1 I use the ordinary word neve to denote the upper basin of a glacier. There 

 are, however, no true neve's in Spitsbergen. All the snow that falls in a season is 

 turned into ice before the next. 



