246 SPITSBERGEN chap, xviii 



July 21. Wind very changeable, N. to S. Bar. 29.55. 

 Clear. — I called this Dome-View Camp because of a striking 

 dome of snow, which is visible from this point, standing up 

 against the blue sky to the north of the bay." 



I began the day by walking towards the head of the 

 bay and back, about eight miles in all. From the point 

 I reached I had a clear view of the moraine which masks 

 the north-west glacier, and determined to follow that route 

 later on. I did not know that it was a glacier ; it does not 

 so appear, but looks like a valley filled with the moraine of 

 an old glacier now extinct, so entirely is it masked by the 

 piles of debris at its foot. About mid-day I left again with 

 Pedersen, who was to come for companionship as far as 

 the head of the bay, and then carry my gun back. The 

 distance from our camp to the foot of the moraine was about 

 eight miles. We did not accomplish it without some diffi- 

 culty, due to the river-torrents we had to wade; and when 

 we foolishly tried to cross the mud at the head of the bay 

 we sank so deeply, or rather were so sucked in, that we 

 ran considerable danger of remaining there altogether. This 

 moraine is very extensive ; it is formed of piles of sand, and 

 clay, and talus, and where a small stream has cut its way 

 through the centre of the moraine, the walls rise on either 

 side in places to a height of thirty feet. 



This, however, is not the main stream of the glacier, 

 which is more formidable altogether, and passing under 

 the hills to the north of the glacier, breaks up into many 

 fingers, and forms, with the streams that enter from north 

 and north-east, a wide shelving stony track at the head of 

 the bay mud. We reached the face of the glacier itself 

 at the end of an hour. This face presents three smooth, 

 black, convex bastions, and arises precipitously to a height of 

 perhaps seventy feet. It would have been unscalable, but for 

 the fact that at one point, and one only, a talus slope led to 



