26 OLAF HOLTEDAHL. [SEC. ARCT. EXP. FRAM 



"Although glacier tongues were observed in pretty nearly every part 

 of Ellesmere Land, and although the greater part of its surface is covered 

 with ice and snow, yet we nowhere saw inland ice properly so called. 

 The glaciation is nowhere sufficiently developed to hide the configuration 

 of the surface under a mantle of inland ice, but is distributed in local 

 fields, the boundaries of which are determined by the topographical features. 

 Ellesmere Land proper consists of a tolerably level high plain of Archaean 

 formation, and here we find the largest single area of glaciation, and of 

 course the nearest approach to inland ice. As a rule, its extremities reach 

 down to the sea in the shape of productive glacier tongues. Their dimensions 

 and volume are too small to justify us in calling them ice- streams, and 

 for as far as the eye is able to penetrate inland from the sea, individual 

 peaks and eminences are seen to break through the accumulations of ice. 

 These features are most pronounced from off Smith Island in Jones Sound, 

 and to Gadogan and Baird inlet further north; so that in place of the 

 continuous covering of ice for, in spite of these numerous protrusions, 

 it does in a way preserve its continuity we have a number of independent 

 neves. The largest neves at Hayes Sound are the Leffert-Alexandra glacier 

 tongues and the glacier tongues of Hayes Sound itself; they fill all the 

 permanent depressions, and on the east side, at any rate, thrust their 

 principal arms down into the sea. On the west they terminate in valley 

 glaciers or are stopped on the walls of the plateau. The glaciers of Hayes 

 Sound proper, for instance, cover the heights which on the south separate 

 Flagler Fjord from Bay's Fjord with an ice-cap which reaches down into 

 the valley at only one point, but there fills it entirely from side to side, 

 and at the same time dams back a lake, On the north of the pass similar 

 glacial conditions prevail, a few arms reaching down to the sea in Princess 

 Marie Bay and in Cafton Fjord. 



The large expanse of ice on Ellesmere Land approaches the sea on 

 the south at only one locality, namely, near Cone Island, in a large 

 productive glacier; west of that, along the same coast, the ice-covering 

 retreats inland. It is only at the heads of the fjords, e.g. of South Cape 

 Fjord and Boat Fjord (Baadsfjord), that a few glacial arms descend as low 

 as the sea-level. 1 As a rule, you have to advance some distance up the 

 valleys which form the continuation of the fjord-trenches before you meet 

 with them, as is the case, for instance, in Fram Fjord, in Swine Fjord 

 (Grisefjord), and in Harbour Fj.ord. In the western part of Jones Sound 

 glaciation on the actual coast is confined to local glacier tongues of the 



l See pi. V, fig. 2, 



