i8o SPITSBERGEN chap, xn 



the ice always hid the edge, so that we could not make 

 any choice of point for quitting it. Quite suddenly we 

 came to the edge. The glacier ended in a cliff of surprising 

 steepness and 115 feet in height. A yard or two away a 

 tongue of snow led down, its low r er part curving out of 

 sight. We followed it curiously and peered over. Another 

 tongue of snow sloped up and almost met it. A short 

 horizontal traverse across the steep ice-face was all that 

 was needed to join the two. Garwood cut a few mighty 

 steps into the ice, and over we went. A brief glissade 

 landed us on the moraine (220 feet high), which was of a 

 most peculiar character, like a ring of foot-hills below the 

 ice-cliff. Its substance consisted of ice, deeply buried under 

 a thick accumulation of stones, all small and rounded like the 

 pebbles of a beach, which in fact they were, as the geologists 

 will explain. 



The exit from this peculiar region was made down a 

 narrow valley, which twisted about, and permitted us to 

 emerge on the almost flat valley-floor by a startlingly sudden 

 transition. There was no ice-foot to this singular glacier, 

 for the simple reason that there was hardly any water 

 issuing from it. It has no great cavern vomiting forth a 

 mighty torrent, but only here and there a driblet of a 

 stream which trickles down the face and, after a short 

 babbling race down a gently inclined shingle slope, oozes 

 over the muddy plain. We too ran down the shingle, yell- 

 ing and jodeling, in the very culmination of joy, for all 

 the difficulties of our journey were overpassed, and all 

 doubts solved. 



There were streams to be waded at once — what of it ? — 

 little cared we for streams, though the stickiest of mud 

 formed their beds. Through them we went, so as to get 

 away from the glacier, and gain a good view of its 

 monstrous end. The more we saw of it, the more we 



