GLACIER. 115 



A breeze sprung up about noon, and we got the 

 sail up and sailed along the edge of the fixed ice to 

 the opposite side of the fiord. The edge of this ice 

 was singularly straight and even, as if cut with a 

 line and a saw from one side to the other. On 

 reaching the east side we landed, and boiled some 

 coffee and ate biscuits. 



The spot where we landed was on an immense 

 muddy terminal moraine of a great glacier, the top 

 of which was lost in the clouds and distance. 

 While the men were resting, I waded through 

 sticky mud, nearly up to my knees, to the top of 

 the moraine, and looked around with my glass, and 

 while doing so I observed that this glacier had the 

 peculiarity — which I never saw in any other of the 

 Spitzbergen glaciers — of being separated from its 

 terminal moraine by about two miles of water. 

 This water was mostly covered with ice, partly 

 "fast,*' and partly detached and moving with the 

 tide ; but the slope and appearance of the glacier 

 blended so gently and insensibly into the sea-ice 

 that at first I thought it was all glacier down to 

 the moraine, until at last, with my glass, I discov- 

 ered that some of the loose pieces were in motion, 

 and observed several seals lying on them and div- 

 ing into the interstices. The moraine was of mud 

 entirely, and was tolerably consolidated at the top, 

 so as to form good walking ; it extended along the 

 entire front of the glacier (which was confined by a 

 limestone hill on each side) in two parts, and was 



