THE ANTARCTIC QUESTION MACHAT. 471 



Along the shores of the antarctic lands, sometimes apart from the 

 fresh blue ice, backing up against the high cliffs and covering in part 

 the lov'-lying beaches, the coast glaciers occasionally break and 

 plunge into the sea. Often joined at the foot they form a continuous 

 ice wall several meters high, extending along the coast for 10 kilo- 

 meters or more. Some of these glaciers, of an Alpine type, bore their 

 way down a gorge from the heights or the inland ice. Tliese Alpine 

 glaciers are principally from Victoria Land. But usually the glaciers 

 are rather of the Piedmont type, common in Alaska and other polar 

 regions of North America. Both the Frangais and the Discovery ex- 

 peditions had opportunities to study them in detail. The glaciers of 

 West Antarctide near Gerlache Strait, etc., are covered by a fine or 

 " powdered " snow, as M. Gourdon calls it, and ampl}^ frosted by the 

 frozen sea spray. They form in the various shapes of a horseshoe, or 

 a trench, or a small embankment and break their front edge into large 

 blocks or prisms which become small icebergs." Near Mount Lacroix 

 one of these glaciers, backed up against two coast ridges, and sup- 

 ported by an invisible foundation, seems afioat on the water, like Koss's 

 great barrier. Von Drj^galski observed glaciers of this sort at Heard 

 Island (Baudissin Glacier). But it is mostly along the extensive 

 shore line of Victoria Land, a distance of more than 1,000 kilometers, 

 that they are numerous and varied. They sometimes appear resting 

 on the solid beach, sometimes grounded on the shoals, and sometimes 

 with their front edge afloat.^ Icebergs form from them all. Since 

 the sources upon which they draw are meager, they may be deemed 

 evidence of a former extensive glaciation ; in some 'cases formidable 

 evidence, for Mr. Scott measured some as long as 90 kilometers, such 

 as the Ferrar Glacier. 



Ross's Great Barrier, studied by Borchgrevink and Scott, seems to 

 be a more imposing example of this phenomenon. It is really an 

 immense coast glacier of fresh-water ice that recedes about 15 centi- 

 meters a day in spite of powerful pressure from behind. Its front 

 ])art is afloat. The massive ice wall, 10 to 80 meters high, which 

 forms its front edge, of w^hich the splendid photographs taken by the 

 Discovery expedition portray its different aspects, is but a frontal 

 glacier, and not, as M. Bernacchi, of the Southern Cross ^ believed, the 

 flank of a gigantic ice slide resting on the mainland. In fact, Captain 

 Scott made a study, at Cape Crozier, of the junction of the barrier 

 to the continent.*' Moreover, it can be seen here how slightly the 

 glacier is fed from above, compared with what has been observed on 

 Greenland. 



" Doctor Charcot : Op. cit, pp. 451, 453. 

 * See M. Ch. Rabot's study, cited above. 

 <> Scott: Op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 172, 191; Vol. II, p. 5, etc. 



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