GLACIOLOGY OF THE SOUTH ORKNEYS. 843 



The geographical position of the islands near the northern edge of the ice-pack and 

 within the area of the " brave west winds " explains the frequency of these compara- 

 tively high temperatures. North-west winds were those most prevalent, as the 

 meteorological data show. Abnormally high temperatures, as high as 46° '8 F., occur 

 sometimes, even in midwinter. These are due to Fohn winds, which were experienced 

 occasionally with W.N.W. winds when the air had passed over the higher land of 

 Coronation Island. This effect was therefore a local one, and would not be met with 

 in the western part of the group. 



These meteorological conditions, I think, explain the diflFerence between the 

 accumulation of snow here and at Snow Hill as described by Nordenskjold. 



It may be that similar conditions prevail in Spitsbergen, where Garwood and 

 Gregory (I.e.) say : "We were forced to the conclusion that under Arctic conditions 

 snow may be converted into ice without pressure, and that the existence of glaciers 

 does not necessarily postulate the existence of great snow-fields." On the other hand, 

 of course, the conditions in the South Orkneys are not the same as those prevailing in 

 the Antarctic further south. 



Glacier Terminations, 



Where the ice-sheets end on land above high- water mark, the second stage passes 

 insensibly into the third, or terminal snout. Although most of the South Orkney 



= vertical cliff 



,^-N = SJtTOlff 



Text-fig. 6. — Glacier with snout and cliff endings. 



glaciers end in a vertical cliff of ice, I regard the tapering snout as being their typical 

 mode of termination, where they are left free to end untruncated by the sea, and this 

 habit of snout termination is an indication that the glaciers are either stationary or 

 actually receding. The vertical ice-cliffs are not analogous to the " Chinese walls " of 

 some of the Greenland and northern glaciers, which are in a state of advance. That 

 they are entirely due to the action of the sea is shown, for instance, by such a small 

 ice-sheet as that coming down to the north coast, a little to the east of Uruguay Cove, 

 of which a diagrammatic plan is given above. In front of this ice-sheet termination are 

 three small rocks. At each of these the termination is by a snout, but between them 



