156 



REPORT 1891. 



on, until at fifty yards from the glacier there is not a large 

 rock to be seen. The circle marked 11 was not painted : it is 

 a singular conical hillock of ice, covered with gravel. Mr. 

 Huddlestone tells me it has kept the same form ever since 

 he went to live at the Hermitage. As there were no con- 

 spicuous rocks on that side of the moraine, I fixed its position 

 instead." 



These observations were made on the 29th March, 1889 ; 

 and on the 14th November, 1890 — one year and 230 days after 

 — Mr. Brodrick being again in the vicinity, I asked him to 

 re-observe the position of the said stones. He has lately 

 reported, — 



" The stones were found again without any trouble. In 

 many cases they had been carried down without displacing 

 the rods which I put on them in 1889, and, as they were only 

 supported on the rocks by piling stones round them, it speaks 

 volumes for the steadiness of the motion. Eock No. 4 has been 

 split by the frost, and each piece has a number on it. No. 7 

 has slipped down into a large hollow : formerly it was on a 

 ridge of ice ; this accounts for its rather erratic motion, and, 

 of course, it must not be used in estimating the rate of the 

 glacier. The average daily rate of the stones is, — 



■ This stone having slipped into a hollow, its movement cannot be relied on. 



" I think the relative motions merely confirm what has 

 been already found out by experiments elsewhere, although I 

 do not know whether marks have ever been placed on ice and 

 their positions fixed in the same way that these have been: if 

 not, I would draw attention to the manner in which this method 

 shows the direction as well as the speed of the current. Every 

 care was taken in fixing the positions : different-coloured flags 

 were used when the number was invisible from the observing- 

 station ; in some cases the same distance was calculated from 

 two separate bases, and each triangle checked by reducing the 



