FIRST WESTERN EXPEDITION 169 



to be bare. I expected this constant thawing on one side of 

 the moraines would have resulted in some asymmetry in their 

 shape, but I was not able to detect any such characteristic. 



We had not much difficulty in traversing these lanes, and 

 crossed several cols, down which Debenham and I — who were 

 not wearing crampons — had to slide in somewhat undignified 

 positions. Here we separated, Wright and Evans making for 

 the lateral gully north of the island, while we moved more 

 directly for its eastern face. We had been steadily rising up 

 the lanes and came to the divide near to Heald Island. 

 Here a narrow water-cut channel led down to a broad frozen 

 river 100 yards across, which fringed the island on the east. 



Debenham collected along the slopes while I pushed on 

 to get a summit view. This end of Heald Island was 1100 

 feet high, and the slope was very steep, for the most part 

 reaching 30 . It was covered with a talus of schists, lime- 

 stones, and basalt, the latter being erratic, while the former 

 were in situ on the top of the hill. 



I got good views of the topography from the compara- 

 tively flat top of the island. The surface was scraped fairly 

 smooth by glacial action, and only a thin veneer of basalt 

 rubble was present in this eastern portion. 



I carefully noted the features towards the S.W., and was 

 satisfied that the slope glaciers (Walcott, Ward, etc.) headed 

 in sharp ranges 6000 feet high, which joined to the scarp of 

 Lister without any intermediate longitudinal valley, such as 

 was indicated on the 1902 map as "Snow Valley." The 

 surface of the glacier through which we had passed was very 

 interesting. I could now see that it would take days to get 

 the sledge up the glacier to a spot where our view would be 

 materially increased, and judged it better to investigate fairly 

 fully the features in this interesting region of the valley. 



The island evidently blocked the glacier greatly, for this 

 was 700 feet higher on the south-west face than where we 

 had crossed it. 



Next morning was foggy and cold, and there had been 

 snow in the night. We boiled the hypsometer and found 

 that the camp was only 100 feet above sea-level. At 1 1 a.m. 

 we started off* to explore a large tributary glacier which we 

 could see across the low-level moraine. Debenham had a sore 

 heel, due to the deep ridges which developed in our frozen 



