FIRST WESTERN EXPEDITION 127 



depression to the talus slopes below the " Double Curtain " 

 tributary glaciers. It seemed a simple matter at first to 

 investigate the glacier front, but it lay much further up the 

 slope than I had imagined, and was moreover protected by an 

 icy mantle of frozen thaw-water which surrounded the snout. 

 Wright cut steps across this " mantle," and found that the 

 almost vertical face of the glacier was forty feet high, and 

 composed of layers of snow which had only lately reached the 

 condition of ice. 



Meanwhile I climbed up the steep rock slopes alongside 

 the glacier. At first the rocky debris was a confused jumble 

 of granites, dolerites, and basalt, with occasional limestones 

 and gneisses. At 2500 feet elevation I reached the top of the 

 slope and stood on the great shoulder which characterizes the 

 Kukri Hills hereabouts. Here solid rock was plentiful — the 

 same gray granite traversed by long dykes of dark basic rock. 

 A wonderful panorama was spread out before me. I could see 

 up the Ferrar Glacier as far as Knob Head. To the south- 

 west jutted out the three giant gables — like the roof of a 

 Gothic cathedral — which were so appropriately named 

 Cathedral Rocks. 



I was much interested in my first view of Descent Pass, 

 by which we proposed to reach the Koettlitz Glacier. Still 

 further to the south-west the spurless wall of the Ferrar was 

 notched by the " Overflow." The latter appeared to spill 

 out through a gloomy curving gorge which indisputably 

 showed evidence of water erosion. In the far west towered 

 the massive Royal Society Range, culminating in Mt. Lister. 

 Its eastern face was carved into rounded " armchair " valleys 

 (cwms) and deep razor-back ridges — another type of topo- 

 graphy which has been recognized in temperate regions as 

 characteristic of glacial erosion. 



On descending to the main glacier I found that the others 

 had collected several small sponges and shells from the small 

 silt moraine in the lateral moat. These organic remains are 

 puzzling, for it is difficult to imagine that such light and 

 fragile specimens indicate a sea-beach, which could only have 

 raised so many feet above the sea at some far distant period. 



Objects of greater biological interest had been encountered 

 on our walk to the side of the glacier. In the rough ice 

 we saw many Emperor Penguins, stolidly motionless and 



