Cole — Glacial Features in Spitsberc/en. 195 



of E. Richter's important paper in 1896. Richter' ably emphasized the fact 

 that cirques are associated with the horizontal working back of mountain- 

 walls by frost-action, combined with the transporting action of glaciers 

 generated in them, and are incompatible with the burial of a region under an 

 ice-cap. They may, of course, also arise in any region where glaciation is 

 local, and they are sometimes generated near the crests of dome-shaped or 

 even peaked mountains, where frost- erosion has produced a hollow in which 

 snow becomes sheltered through the year. The great cirque on Nephin, Co. 

 Mayo, is a familiar example. Mount Pyramid in Spitsbergen is excavated on 

 the side towards Billen Bay by a single hollow formed by coalescing 

 avalanche-grooves, which has escaped being a true cirque, through its 

 inabihty to support a glacier on its steep and easily eroded floor (PI. XL, 

 fig. 5). F. Machacek- regards the glacier in the cirque-floor as of the first 

 importance. When this melts away, the cirque tends to become filled up ; 

 and the premature loss of the glacier leaves a cirque imperfectly developed. 

 W. D. Johnson's view of the potency of the " bergschrund " in sapping the 

 cirque-wall at its base is still much under discussion. It must be borne in 

 mind that F. E. Matthes^ and A. Penck* both ascribe the formation of the 

 cliff mainly to the undermining action of frost within the bergschrund. 



The origin of the hollow in which the snow begins to lie, so that the 

 formation of a cirque becomes possible, was well recognized by Matthes,' who 

 was the first to show clearly how snow-drifts may eat their way down 

 into sloping ground. The passage from such " nivation " hollows to cirques 

 has recently been studied by Hobbs.'' He illustrates the hollows by 

 photographs from the Yellowstone National Park, and accepts fully, in another 

 of his thoughtful and systematic papers,' the subaerial origin of cirques. 

 Sir Martin Conway,^ who must, however, be numbered with those who 

 question the efficacy of glacial erosion, supports the subaerial view of cirque- 

 formation from his experiences in Spitsbergen. Maxwell H. Close," moreover, 



' " Geomorphologische Beobachtungen aus Norwegen," Silzungsber. k. Akiid AViss. AVien, 

 Bd. cv. (1896), Abt. 1, pp. 155, 163, &c., and " Geomorpliologische Untersucliungen in den 

 Hocbalpen," Petermann's Mitt., Erganz. Heft 132 (1900), p. 1. 



- " Geomorphologisohe Studien ans dem norwegischen Hochgebiige," .\bhandl. d. k. k. 

 geograph. Gesellscbaft in Wien, Bd. Yii (1908), p. 54. 



^ " Glacial Sculpture of the Bighorn Mountains, "Wyoming," 21st Ann. Rep. U. S. Geol. Survey 

 (1900), Part II, p. 185. 



■"'Glacial Features of the Alps," Journ. of Geol., vol. xiii (1905), p. 16. 



° Op. cit., p. 179. 



<^ Op. cit., Geograph. Journ., 1910, p. 154. 



' AV. H. Hobbs, " Characteristics of the Inland Ice of the Arctic Regions," Proc. Amer. Phil. 

 Soc, vol. xlix (1910), p. 58. 



* " An Exploration in 1897 of some of the Glaciers of Spitsbergen," Geogr. Journ, 1898, p. 142. 



^ " Some Conies and their Rock-basins in Kerry," Journ. R. Geol. Soc. Ireland, vol. ii (1870), 

 p. 244. 



