138 NOISES FROM GLACIERS. 



cause may be, it is actively at work still, 

 because we frequently saw enormous slices of 

 tbe smooth division split up and cave in 

 towards tbe disrupted part ; and there is a 

 constant succession of tremendous booming 

 reports, exactly resembling loud and prolonged 

 thunder, proceeding from these cracks and from 

 the whole of the rough part of the glacier in 

 general. 



I have questioned men who have frequented 

 the Spitzbergen seas for as many as twenty 

 summers, and they all say that this glacier 

 has always presented the same appearance 

 since they first saw it. 



Of course this glacier has no visible ter- 

 minal moraine above water, but it may pos- 

 sibly have some connection with an extensive 

 submarine bank, which lies opposite the whole 

 length of the front of the glacier, and ex- 

 tends for fifteen or twenty miles to sea. The 

 soundings on this bank may average fifteen 

 fathoms, with a bottom of bluish clay ; it is a 

 very favourite resort of the seal and the walrus, 

 particularly the latter; for which I am led 

 to suppose that the bank produces, in un- 

 usual numbers, the molluscse on which they 

 feed. 



