GEACTAE SRY DIES IN. GRETNA INE. 65 
irregular ridge, with black, rather ragged outliers in the vicinity. 
The whole combination has a very volcanic aspect, but there is 
little or nothing in this upon which to base an inference respect- 
ing its nature. Westward from Peaked Hill there are frequent 
protrusions of hill and mountain crests and ragged outliers, 
arranged in an irregular scattered way, but sufficiently thick to 
give the sea frontage quite as much the expression of a range of 
mountains with attendant glaciation, as of predominant glaciation 
interrupted by mountainous projections. The inland ice may be 
seen sufficiently through the gaps to show that it dominates the 
country immediately in the rear, and that the mountainous 
aspect is purely frontal. Frequent ice tongues come winding 
down between the hills to the sea, and to some extent glacial 
sheets wrap them about, while local ‘glaciers and snow blankets 
cover portions of their slopes. The total expression is much 
more glacial than that of the land border south of the Melville 
ice wall. 
Into the bay east of Cape York very considerable glacial 
tongues descend from the east, north and west. They push well 
out into the bay, which probably signifies that it is shallow. 
During the past season the ice did not move out of the bay (at 
least it had not at the time of our return, when the season of new 
ice was at hand) and hence ail the icebergs recently discharged 
remained embedded in the stationary ice. Mr. Astrup informs 
me that the ice does not usually move out annually but remains 
for a period of years, and, partly by deeper freezing and partly 
by snow accumulations, acquires considerable thickness. When 
it is finally forced out it forms at least a variety, if not the 
typical variety, of “‘paleocrystic” floes. Mr. Astrup thinks that 
glaciers sometimes force such floes out. 
Cape York is a promontory of ancient crystalline rock, stand- 
ing at the junction of Melville Bay with the northern extremity 
of Baffin’s Bay, where it narrows rapidly into Smith’s Sound. 
From this point west-northwestward for some forty miles, the 
Crimson Cliffs present an abrupt plateau face, down the ravines of 
which creep a dozen small glaciers. The name ‘‘Crimson Cliffs” 
