i 9 o 3 ] A CURIOUS VALLEY 215 



the face of the glacier, where it had been much worn by water ; 

 enough remained, however, for Lashly to remark, "What a 

 splendid place for growing spuds ! " Skirting the lake below the 

 glacier, we found ourselves approaching the high, rocky groin 

 which puzzled us so much last night, but we now saw that a very 

 narrow channel wound round its base. At its narrowest this 

 channel was only seventeen feet across, and as we traversed 

 this part, the high cliffs on either side towered above our heads 

 and we seemed to be passing through a massive gateway ; 

 beyond this the valley opened out again, and its floor was 

 occupied by a frozen lake a mile in breadth and three or four 

 miles in length. As the snow surface of this lake was very 

 rough, we were obliged to skirt its margin; we were now 

 1,300 feet below our camp, and about 300 feet above sea level. 

 The shores of the lake for several hundred feet up the hillsides 

 were covered with a coarse granitic sand strewn with numerous 

 boulders, and it was curious to observe that these boulders, 

 from being rounded and sub-angular below, gradually grew to 

 be sharper in outline as they rose in level. 



' At the end of the second lake the valley turned towards 

 the north-east ; it was equally clearly cut, but the floor rose on 

 a mass of morainic material. At first there was a general 

 tendency for this to be distributed in long ridges, but later the 

 distribution was disturbed, and it was easy to see that broad 

 water-channels had made clean breaches in these vast piles of 

 sand and boulders. Quite suddenly these moraines ceased, 

 and we stepped out on to a long stretch of undulating sand 

 traversed by numerous small streams, which here and there 

 opened out into small, shallow lakes quite free from ice. 



'I was so fascinated by all these strange new sights that I 

 strode forward without thought of hunger until Evans asked if 

 it was any use carrying our lunch further ; we all decided that 

 it wasn't, and so sat down on a small hillock of sand with a 

 merry little stream gurgling over the pebbles at our feet. It 

 was a very cheery meal, and certainly the most extraordinary 

 we have had. We commanded an extensive view both up and 

 down the valley, and yet, except about the rugged mountain 



