SCHEI'S NARRATIVE. 467 



' Of glaciers proper there are none in this part of the island, but 

 the large patches of snow, sixty to a hundred feet thick, which 

 collect- during the winter on the slopes, sheltered from the 

 prevailing winds, lie from year to year, and that part of them 

 which does not melt during the summer months is transformed 

 into ice. When this mass, as it often does, presents a high 

 perpendicular or even overhanging wall of stratified ice, it has 

 great outward similarity to a real glacier. 



' This was the case with one of these patches which the 

 southerly winds had built up under a crag on the south side of the 

 valley. Here the edge of the drift hung over to such an extent 

 that the cornice, so to speak, had at last broken off, and now lay a 

 regenerated drift at the bottom of the valley. 



' The higher part of the valley lay from south to north, and a 

 smaller side valley joined it from the west, before a narrow gorge 

 bounded by steep mountain-sides, where the main valley turned off 

 sharply to the east. Northward, in the aforesaid lateral valley, the 

 north-west wind had built up a drift under the lee of the declivities, 

 which completely cut off the valley. The depression above, thus 

 obstructed by the drift, was filled with snow accumulated by the 

 southerly winds. Through this mass of snow rose a number of 

 mounds, with pointed tops, one behind the other, running in the 

 direction of the valley. They were composed of grit and pebbles, 

 results of the river's structural action, as by degrees it had worked 

 itself backwards up through the drift during the course of the 

 summer. 



' In a valley north of Land's End, in King Oscar Land, there 

 was a similar drift, in similar circumstances, which had so dammed 

 the valley as to form a lake, in consequence of the river being 

 unable to cut its way through the drift. Later on the river formed 

 a tunnel under the snow, and the lake consequently diminished in 

 volume, although it did not entirely disappear. I saw it frozen in 

 the autumn. 



' But to return to North Kent : I had passed the before- 

 mentioned drifts, had been up on the plateau above the north side 

 of the valley, and had already begun to retrace my steps when 

 I saw the track of an animal. The track was old and almost 



