838 



DR J. H. HARVEY PIRIE ON 



Ice-Sheets or Glaciers of Laurie Island : General Characters. 



The effect of this configuration of the land is to produce a number of entirely cut- 

 off or partially detached ice-sheets of a roughly semicircular or crescentic shape, sur- 

 rounding the head of each bay, and extending for a variable distance along their sides 

 (Plate III.). On the wider lateral peninsulas the ice-sheets may extend well out 

 towards their apices, but rarely in the shape of a continuous terrace, being generally 

 divided by projecting spurs of rock into small separated ice-sheets. Through cols and 

 gaps in the hills (of the main or of the subsidiary ridges) the glacier of one bay may 

 become continuous with that of another on the opposite side of the island, or with 

 its neighbours on the same side (see Plate XL). The dividing ridges are in many 

 places so steep that the ice does not reach to their summits ; in others there is an ice- 

 covering up to the top of even the highest hill-tops. At the eastern end of the island 

 the central ridge is covered to such an extent that there is one continuous ice-cap over 

 the area from Brown's Bay to the base of Ferrier Peninsula, the outlines of underlying 

 hills still being, however, easily discernible. This part clearly corresponds with 

 Nordenskjold's Spitsbergen type of glaciation ; most of the other ice-sheets belong to 

 the type first described by ARgTOWSKi from Gerlache Strait as " suspended coastal 

 glaciers," later by Nordenskjold as " ice-foot glaciers," and by Gourdon as " piedmont 

 glaciers," or are intermediate in character between them and the Spitsbergen type. 



The accompanying figures show diagrammatically the relationships presented 

 between these ice-sheets and the land in a number of imaginary sections across the 

 island. These ice-foot glaciers form an interrupted terrace all round the coast with, in 



3. 4. 



Text-fio. 1 gives a diagrammatic section across the island at sncli places as 1 .... 2, 3 .... 4, .').... fi, 

 7 .... 8, and 11 .... 12. See map, Plate I. This is simi)ly AugrowsKi's diagram, on p. 485 of the 

 Antarctic Manned, of a slope or ice-foot glacier on the coast of a large mass of land, with the other side of the 

 mountain shown, since we are dealing here with a narrow island with ice-foot glaciers on both sides. 



In Text-fig. 2 we have the appearances at such places as 9 .... 10,13 .... 14, and 15 .... 16, i.e. a section 

 throtigh a col where the ice-sheet on one side of the island becomes continuous with that on the other ; or across 

 the eastern part of the island where the central ridge is low and comj)letely ice covered. 



Text-fjo. 3, as at 17 ... . 18, and Text-fig. 4, as at 19 ... . 20, represent rathei' unusual circumstances, 

 inasmuch as the ice does not reach the sea but ends on land with a terminal moraine. 



their typical form, a terminal vertical face about sea-level. From the central mountain 

 ridffe or from the ice-shed to the terminal front the maximum distance is about two 



