SUMMER CRUISE 61 
thick. As there is now very little motion to the ice, few icebergs 
break off, and those that do are too small to cause danger to 
the vessels in the anchorage. The southern corner of the bay is 
free of ice, and a small river discharges there from a southern 
valley. The glacier comes down the northwest valley, leaving 
its rocky wall about a mile inland; thence to the sea it is 
bounded by a steep ridge of glacial drift full of large boulders; 
the crest of this ridge gradually falls from two hundred feet to 
fifty feet as it approaches the water. There are large quantities 
of mud on and through the ice, so that all the streams discharg- 
ing from it are very dirty. At some former time this glacier 
filled the entire valley extending to its mouth five miles away, 
and depositing against the rocky walls banks of boulder drift 
to a height of four hundred feet above the present level of the 
sea. There is no doubt that in the glacial period the size and 
extent of the glaciers of Baffin island were much greater than 
at present; at the same time the sharp outlines of the hills, to- 
gether with the absence of that intense polishing and striation 
of the rocks so common in Labrador and more southern regions, 
point to a much thinner ice-cap during the glacial period in 
these northern regions than on the continental area to the south. 
This may be accounted for, in part, by a smaller precipitation 
from the narrow, ice-laden seas in the north. 
VOYAGE SOUTHWARD FROM PONDS INLET. 
We left Erik harbour late on the afternoon of the 22nd, 
intending to proceed southward along the coast in order to 
correct the chart, which we were informed was very unreliable 
to Cumberland gulf. The fog closed down shortly after leaving, 
and, soon, large sheets of heavy ice forced us to the eastward 
away from the land, which was not seen again until we were 
within a few miles of the northern side of Cumberland gulf, 
on the morning of the 27th. Meanwhile the ship, continuously 
