i 7 4 SPITSBERGEN chap, xii 



it, and those remotest mountains beyond, with flushes of 

 yellow light amongst them. Broader and flatter grew the 

 ridge, its surface like the surface of a stony field, soft and 

 level. I kept to the right edge of it, overlooking the great 

 glacier — so white and wide, undulating down from broad 

 snowy domes, one behind the other, on some of which the 

 sun always shone. There was no proper neve. The highest 

 and remotest domes were still of ice, naked save in hollows 

 and on slopes where snow had drifted ; for here the first 

 frost turns "the sopping snow to ice without need of long- 

 continued pressure to change the structure of the mass. In 

 the midst of the glacier at various levels were lakes of so 

 beautiful a blue that the patches of blue sky above were not 

 more full of colour and transparency. 



The higher I rose the wilder and more furious blew the 

 wind, carrying me along. Hundreds of fulmar petrels were 

 in the air all about the ridge, apparently playing with the 

 gale. It seemed as though the place belonged especially to 

 them. Onward I went, for there was always another step 

 in the ridge ahead. There was no snow on the ground, 

 though lower places all about were thickly ice-draped. Wind 

 keeps this exposed area free, and flowers grow upon it, 

 especially poppies and the ubiquitous Dryas Octopetala. A 

 single reindeer met me in the way and swiftly retreated. At 

 last even the petrels were left behind. A long final slope led 

 me to the top — a wide flat space whence cliffs dropped away 

 on two sides to the great glacier's upper area, an apparently 

 limitless extent of purest white — not flat, but ever rising to 

 dome after dome, one beyond another, far as the eye could 

 reach. 



I halted, leaning against the gale, and with difficulty 

 set up the plane-table, holding it with both hands and spread- 

 ing wide the legs. My summit was higher than the Sassendal 

 bluffs, and only surpassed by the snow domes. Unfortu- 



