Bo. XVI. REPORT ON PETERMANN GLACIER. 347 



and uneven that walking (in the ordinary sense of the word) 

 was impossible, and to get along at all it was frequently 

 necessary to resort to crawling. The surface was thickly 

 studded with circular pits, about six inches deep, and from one 

 to eighteen inches in diameter, usually containing a little snow 

 and some dark powder. In general configuration the surface 

 of this ice was arranged for the most part in undulating ridges, 

 extending obliquely down the fiord in a northerly and southerly 

 direction ; but as a rule interrupted by wide fissures and 

 faults, so that few of the ridges were directly continuous for 

 a greater length than two miles. The height from crest to 

 furrow was usually about thirty feet, and the slope so steep 

 and slippery that in many places it was quite impracticable 

 to cross the ridges except by cutting steps, or some such con- 

 trivance. The furrows, as a rule, had a certain amount of 

 snow-bed, and so far as they went afforded good travelling ; 

 but where the ice was devoid of snow, not even a dog could 

 obtain foothold. It is not to be understood from the above 

 that the ice-surface was everywhere disposed in these great 

 ridges and furrows : for there were many patches from five to 

 six acres in extent of bare ice exhibiting an irregularly undu- 

 lating surface from thirty to thirty-five feet above the water- 

 level, and intersected by narrow fissures. 



Having explored all the ice within a day's journey of this 

 camp, and found that by keeping for three-quarters of a mile 

 to the old floe, which sent a tongue under the north-east 

 cliffs, and taking to a furrow of the glacier ice for another 

 . three-quarters of a mile we could advance our position, we 

 packed up and proceeded. 



Our third camp, reached on the 25th of May, was 

 thirteen miles from Offley Island and two hundred yards 

 from the north-east line of cliffs. Here Lieutenant Fulford 

 obtained ' sights ' for latitude. From four miles to the 

 northward of this position, these cliffs presented a vertical 

 face about 1,100 feet high, composed of alternating bands 

 of light-grey and dark slate-coloured fossiliferous limestone 

 rock, and from abreast our third camp, were surmounted by 



