2io SPITSBERGEN chap, xv 



sense a peculiar glacier, but may be taken as absolutely 

 typical of the smaller Spitsbergen examples. From the 

 moment of treading on it you know that you are not in 

 the Alps. The surface of the ice is softer, and crunches 

 more easily than in Europe ; there is more water on it, and 

 more snow, lying about in wet beds, and now rapidly dis- 

 appearing. This snow was in better condition than any 

 we had thus far met, and had evidently been frozen during 

 recent days. There was not much more snow high up 

 than low down. There was no proper neve. At the col 

 and right up to the tops of the peaks around, all was ice 

 below the thin snow-sheet. The main water-channel started 

 from the very col itself and flowed over the ice, even 

 crossing snow-filled crevasses, right down to the moraines. 

 These surface rivers, flowing in channels down the snow- 

 covering of a glacier from its uppermost region, are highly 

 characteristic of Arctic glaciers. We saw them even on 

 the largest and remotest snow-fields. They often become 

 bogged in snow-beds, or flow for a while below the surface, 

 but they emerge again and continue their irregular furrow 

 down to each glacier's foot. They form a climber's great 

 impediment, for on large glaciers they are deep and swift, 

 and the snow-bogs and slush-lakes they make are enormous, 

 and may often be impassable. 



As the day advanced and the sun went round, the widening 

 view over the fjord grew in beauty. It strikingly resembled 

 many a spring-time prospect over Como or Maggiore. Hills 

 and water were alike drowned in a beautiful blue tint, which 

 masked the barrenness of the shores whereon the sun shone 

 warmly. No lake-view of Italy could have been more 

 luxuriant or more lovely than that of this desert sea-reach 

 in an Arctic land. But clouds were gathering over it when 

 we gained the col, and the moments of its visibility were 

 evidently to be few ; so we did not halt, but hurried 



