FIRST WESTERN EXPEDITION 167 



high leading to empty " hanging ' valleys. These radiated 

 from the base of the Lister scarp, which rose in one steep 

 face 10,000 feet to the summit. This face was pitted by 

 gigantic " armchair " valleys or, as they are technically called, 

 cwms, and presented a spectacle which probably could be 

 paralleled nowhere in the world. 



Looking southward across the Koettlitz from the mouth 

 of one of these hanging valleys one could see some sort of 

 plan in the icy maze which had so bewildered us. Above 

 Heald Island the valley was filled with the glacial stream in 

 a normal uniform mass, interrupted only by crevasses and 

 falls. But to the east of Heald Island it took the form of a 

 glacier " delta." Below the falls the ice descended to the 

 east in a series of broad undulations, a portion of which we 

 had traversed on the 23 rd. Long promontories of ice fifty feet 

 high extended from the unbroken glacier mass and probably 

 represented the crests of the undulations. These degenerated 

 at the ends into icebergs and monoliths of ice, and these again 

 had weathered into the bastions and pinnacles. Lower down 

 the thaw waters had etched these into still smaller units, and 

 along the coast just below me the streams had formed a well- 

 defined if narrow avenue of smooth ice, which promised us 

 an easier return. 



On these slopes I found an ice-scratched block — the only 

 specimen I had seen in a hundred miles of moraine debris. 



I walked along the margin of the glacier, and was amazed 

 to see seal-tracks in the fresh snow. We were over twenty 

 miles from the sea, and had not seen any possible route for 

 seals on our outward journey. Yet here were two seals — 

 asleep as usual — on the old glacier ice. I disturbed one of 

 them to see what it would do. He sneezed and grunted at 

 me. When I teased him further he began to warble ! I 

 heaved a lump of ice at him, whereupon he lolloped twenty 

 yards to a wet patch, lay over on his side, and produced a 

 whole octave of musical notes from his chest, ranging up to 

 a canary-like chirrup. Finally he crawled under a deep ledge, 

 and vigorously butting with his shoulders, opened out a hole 

 and flopped under the avenue ice. 



Later I came out among the moraines, and was unable to 

 make out where our tent was. Soon I saw Wright's foot- 



o 



prints in the snow — two sets, one going each way. By 



