46 Chemical and Physical Notes 



more important feature of the land, and it should be the 

 object of careful observation by the landing-party. The 

 subject is a large one. The longer one studies ice the more 

 one finds there is to learn about it, and the physicist or 

 chemist who takes part in the Expedition should miss no 

 opportunity of studying it in all directions. In order to do 

 so with effect, he ought to have made preliminary studies 

 of glaciers in Switzerland, where he finds every facility to 

 his hand, and these studies should be made in winter as well 

 as in summer. 



Another educational preliminary for the members of 

 a land expedition is to acquire as much skill as possible in 

 ski-running and the method of travel adopted by Nansen 

 in crossing Greenland. For this purpose a short visit to 

 Norway in winter would be useful. The way into the 

 Antarctic interior will almost certainly be over land-ice, 

 and if it is the ice which is the parent of the great tabular 

 bergs so well known from illustrations, it is probable that 

 travelling over it will not be very difficult in so far as the 

 nature of its surface is concerned. It has long been known 

 that the glaciers of Greenland travel much more rapidly than 

 those of Switzerland, but it is only since the publication of 

 Drygalski's remarkable observations 1 , carried on throughout 

 the year on the glaciers of the west coast of Greenland, that 

 we know that in some cases the motion of the ice reaches the 

 astonishing rate of 18 metres in twenty- four hours, and that 

 this rate of motion is very little affected by the change of 

 season. According to Drygalski, what chiefly affects the 

 motion of a glacier is its mass. Great as are the glaciers of 

 Greenland, there can be little doubt that the parents of the 

 Antarctic tabular icebergs are many times greater. If con- 

 ditions such as these exist on the Antarctic land, it is little 

 wonder that the supply of tabular icebergs is so abundant. 

 Dr Ar^towski has described how, on the occasions when he 

 landed on the rugged coasts visited by the " Belgica," and the 

 weather was calm, the thunder of falling ice was continuous. 



1 Gronland Expedition, 1891-3, unter Leitung von Erich von Drygalski. 

 Berlin, 1897. 



