1903] DELAYED BY THE WIND 175 



directly across it, and, after first rising for several hundred 

 feet, descends again steeply down the north arm towards the 

 sea.' 



I may here mention that these crampons to which I refer 

 were manufactured on board the ship ; those used in the 

 previous year were voted wholly unsatisfactory, and gave rise 

 to many blisters, whereupon our chief engineer took the matter 

 in hand, and with the assistance of the boatswain produced an 

 article which rendered us excellent service on this journey. 

 Each crampon had two steel plates studded with mild steel 

 spikes, one for the sole and the other for the heel ; the plates 

 were riveted on to a canvas overall half- boot which could be 

 put on over a finnesko and kept tight with thongs. The device 

 was heavy, but as quite the best sort of thing in the circum- 

 stances it is well worthy of imitation by future travellers in 

 these regions. 



The moraine which at this time bewildered us so much 

 was one of those signs of a former greater extension of the ice 

 to which I shall refer in my final chapter. 



The wind kept us in this wretched moraine for two days — 

 a tiresome delay — but we managed to get out for an hour or 

 two and make an interesting excursion to the side of the 

 glacier. After a short search we found a way by which, with 

 some aid from a rope, we could climb down the steep ice- face 

 and visit the land beyond. 



We afterwards found that the side of this glacier was more 

 or less typical of other places. It must be understood that 

 from the top of this wall the surface sloped rapidly up, whilst 

 the bottom layer of ice would naturally have sloped down into 

 the valley, so that in the middle the glacier must have been 

 very many times as thick as at the side. The ice was curiously 

 stratified ; the white part contained numerous air vesicles, the 

 darker parts were in many cases due to included dirt, but a 

 broad dark band running through the middle had no dirt in 

 it at all — it was the cleanest ice we saw. A piece split off it 

 was like the purest crystal without a sign of grit or air bubble 

 to obstruct its perfect transparency. 



