348 SPITSBERGEN chap, xxv 



open till late in the season. The sheet north of the 

 Sassendal can be entered by way of the Post Glacier in 

 Temple Bay, or the Nordenskjold Glacier at the north-east 

 angle of Klaas Billen Bay. The Nordenskjold Glacier is 

 also the natural point of departure for the great ice-sheet 

 stretching away north and north-east. There is a great 

 glacier valley debouching on Hinloopen Strait almost op- 

 posite Cape Torell, which it would be most interesting to 

 descend. The best glacial area of all to be explored in a 

 short summer expedition is that between Kings Bay, the 

 sea, and Ice Fjord, for it is traversed by splendid rivers of 

 ice from south-east to north-west, and it contains a number 

 of fine peaks which might be climbed. At the head of 

 Cross Bay there is said to be a long snowy valley that 

 runs northward ; this and all the snowy and mountainous 

 area north and east is full of opportunity for interesting 

 discoveries. 



In half-a-dozen summer holidays of six weeks' duration 

 or thereabouts, an active party of men, familiar with 

 ice-craft, and possessing such rudimentary knowledge of 

 surveying as may be learnt from Mr. Coles at the Royal 

 Geographical Society (i Savile Row) in a few hours of study, 

 might fill in the main outlines of the as yet blank interior 

 of Spitsbergen, to their own great enjoyment and the profit 

 of geography. The whole country is intensely interesting 

 from a scientific point of view, because of the rapidity 

 with which its surface is being modelled into such forms 

 as were impressed in glacial times on the now temperate 

 and inhabited parts of Northern Europe. For this reason 

 we need accurate and detailed information about the nature 

 of the interior of Spitsbergen, as well as records from year 

 to year of the changes that occur in it, so that we may be 

 able to deduce the rate at which valleys eat their way 



