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FIRST WESTERN EXPEDITION 



'39 



extends four miles east from the snout of the Taylor Glacier. 

 Here the wide valley was filled with morainic debris, and 

 several tributary glaciers were close at hand. A large hanging 

 glacier almost reaches the level of the lake. It is fed by three 

 separate firn-fields, the ice being precipitated over a steep 

 craggy cliff, and then reuniting into a broad glacier below. 

 This I called the Sollas Glacier. Another similar glacier on 

 the northern side almost reached the middle of the valley, and 

 we passed just under its snout. The water from all these 

 glaciers drained into Lake Bonney. I was much surprised to 

 find that after we had passed the lake, the bed of the valley 

 began to rise. This lake evidently occupies an area of internal 

 drainage, and we pressed eastward wondering if we should be 

 stopped by a range of hills. Evans had mentioned seeing in 

 the distance (in 1903) a glacier which completely blocked the 

 valley, so our supposition was not beyond possibility. 



Immediately east of Lake Bonney the bed of the valley 

 was occupied by curious areas which Evans' name of " Foot- 

 ball Fields " described quite well. These were four oval 

 areas about 1000 yards long and half that width, as level as a 

 playing-ground and composed of a gravelly silt with insignifi- 

 cant shallow streams winding through each. Separating the 

 " Fields ' were ridges of moraine about fifty yards across. 

 The " Fields " gradually became higher in an easterly direction, 

 each, however, maintaining its own particular level. These 

 isolated patches of dead level in the midst of a wilderness of 

 moraine heaps often a hundred feet high need explanation. 

 Level areas of silt under any conditions denote material 

 deposited at base level. (This may be the permanent base level 

 of all water erosion, i.e. the level of the sea, or a temporary 

 level, as when a river enters a lake, the latter acting as a base 

 level until it is filled.) The "football fields" represent, 

 therefore, the last stages of a chain of lakes which occupied the 

 bed of the valley at this point. Probably Lake Bonney will 

 gradually be silted up in a similar manner, though here 

 conditions are abnormal, for the drainage is a thorough puzzle. 

 The lake would seem to have no outlet, and yet, as we have 

 seen, it is quite shallow except a mere fringe near the cliffs. 

 In midsummer a great quantity of thaw water runs down from 

 the main glacier. Possibly evaporation and ablation may 

 balance the inflow. It seems improbable that the water soaks 



