DESCRIPTION OF THE ISLANDS 361 



Along the south coast of Coronation Island, from Signy Island to South Cape, there 

 are several ice-foot glaciers and there are others on the west coast (Plate XV, figs, i, 2, 

 Plate XVII, fig. 2), but elsewhere the glaciation of the island as a whole is ver}^ largely 

 highland in character. The highland ice attains its maximum development towards the 

 western end of Coronation Island where the high central ridge falls rapidly away and 

 the whole of the land from coast to coast is covered by a thin and practically continuous 

 ice-sheet. In the region of the narrow neck occupied by Deacon Hill in particular, 

 the land is completely glaciated. Here the highland ice, unbroken and remarkably 

 smooth, reaches the coast both north and south of the neck in long low clilTs 

 which extend along the head of Norway Bight in the south for 2f miles — the longest 

 unbroken stretch of ice-clifl: in the South Orkneys (Plate XVII, fig. i). Over the steep 

 western coast this ice-sheet spills in a series of hanging glaciers and confused and 

 heavily crevassed ice-falls (Plate XVII, figs. 2, 3, 4). To the latter John^ refers in the 

 following passage: "The enormous unbridged crevasses, as much as 30 feet across, 

 forced us to make our way through the chaos of the ice-fall on the right below where 

 the thick ice-field spills over a vertical rock wall. The upper part of the fall consists 

 of pieces of ice some as big as churches, others the size of cottages, lying at all sorts 

 of angles to one another." In the north-western part of the island, as far as we 

 were able to ascertain, the highland ice extends from the neighbourhood of Penguin 

 Point for at least half-way towards Cape Bennett. Along this stretch of the coast the 

 land is comparatively low-lying and rather even in outline, with a gentle slope to the 

 interior. It is, as D'Urville- remarked in 1838, almost completely if lightly glaciated, 

 scarcely anv bare rock being exposed except for patches here and there near sea level 

 (Plate XVIII, fig. i). Farther east the north coast was not examined closely. From all 

 accounts the land there is also largely ice-clad, apparently by highland ice. In the 

 eastern half of Coronation Island, where the land mass attains a much higher general 

 level, the highland ice-cap is inclined to be developed in patches, especially over the 

 mountainous region behind the eastern sea-board where some peaks are almost com- 

 pletely covered, others only partially or not at all. At several points on the east coast, 

 as in Laurie Island, the highland ice passes directly into the fringing ice-foot glaciers 

 of Lewthwaite Strait. Along the crest of the central ridge, apparently where it attains 

 its maximum elevation, there is a conspicuous development of highland ice. On the 

 most precipitous of the southern slopes it chngs as a thin armouring but occasionally 

 gives rise to ice-falls of considerable magnitude or spills over in hanging glaciers resting 

 somewhat insecurely on the steep rock faces high up beneath the crest (Plate XV, figs .1,2). 



On the steep mountain sides and buttresses of the southern and eastern coasts small 

 cliflt glaciers are not uncommon. Some reach the sea, others, like slabs "plastered 

 against the cliff ",^ hang precariously on the rock face, often at a great height (Plate XV, 

 fig. I, and Plate XX, fig. i). 



^ John, D. Dilwyn, 1934, The Second Antarctic Commission of the R.R.S. 'Discovery IP, Geog. Journ., 

 Lxxxiii, part 5, p. 393. 



2 D'Urville, D., 1842, loc. cit., p. 74. ^ Pirie, J. H. Harvey, 1913, loc. cit., p. 858. 



