THE NORDENSKJOLD ICE TONGUE 71 



Fig. 26 is a panorama taking in about 20 miles of coast from the Harbord 

 Ice Barrier Tongue to Mount Gauss. The view is taken from the flat top of the 

 Nordenskjold Ice Tongue, looking north-west towards Mount George Murray, and 

 west by south towards the Mawson Glacier. 



The point of attachment of the Nordenskjold Ice Tongue to the Mawson 

 Glacier can be seen just at the point where that glacier comes down to sea-level. 

 This attachment is much constricted by a long narrow gulf on the southern side 

 of the Tongue, and by Charcot Bay on the north. 



The erosive force of the sea, imj^elled by the fierce southerly blizzards, threatens 

 soon to betrunk the piedmont, and separate it entirely from its parent glacier. 

 There is a great contrast between the appearance of this glacier on this southern 

 side as compared with that of its northern. The photograph shows the features 

 of the northern edge of the Tongue. 



Northwards this Tongue terminates in a precipice from about 50 to 70 feet in 

 height. At the point where we crossed it, we discovered a very steep snow slope, 

 shown in the photograph, down which we lowered the sledges. At the top of the 

 clifi" was a species of crevasse, separating the slope of hardened snow from the 

 barrier edge. This crack was apparently due to a settlement of the snow drift, 

 and in this settlement the snow cornice at the top of the cliff had been cracked 

 across, thus : — 



Broken snow cornice 



Drift snow resting against cliFF Face 

 of Barrier and supported by the sea ice. 



Sno»on sea ice. ttie latter 

 about 6 feet thick. 



Fig. 27. Section across northern edge of the Nordenskjold Ice Barrier Tongue 



This aspect of the Tongue is in strong contrast to that presented in the following 

 sketches, taken at its south side (Fig. 28). 



Both these sketches exhibit the rounded, clean-swept bosses of true glacier ice 

 characteristic of the southern side of the Tongue. They also show two deep indents, 

 of which the western, next the coast, is several miles in length, trending from south 



