GLACIOLOGY OF THE SOUTH ORKNEYS. 849 



constantly lapped by the sea. It was not found possible, unfortunately, to measure 

 the depth of water in front of the ice-cliif. The sides of these bays, however, 

 resemble Scotia Bay in having a beach between the cliff and low-water mark ; in 

 one place this was as much as 80 yards wide. The glacier at the head of MacDougall 

 Bay comes down more steeply than the Scotia Bay ice-sheet, and presumably 

 has a greater rate of motion, enabling it to push its way further out against the 

 solvent and breaking action of the sea, but it is not large enough to give rise to an 

 iceberg of any size — certainly not to a tabular berg. No calving was seen in 

 MacDougall Bay or Brown's Bay during our three weeks' boat journey on the north 

 coast, and of the ice falls seen there, or in Scotia Bay, I do not think there was ever 

 a single piece larger than, say, an ordinary tramcar. Even such falls, however, 

 give rise to considerable noise, resembling that of a cannon shot. The falls were 

 very infrequent ; some, pieces that were overhanging and partly cut off by a wide 

 gaping crevasse at the top when we came to the South Orkneys were still in the 

 same position when we left eleven months later. This is a further proof of the 

 slow rate of motion of these glaciers, and it is interesting to compare this state of 

 affairs with the statement in the Challenger Reports, that on Heard Island, situated 

 about 8° further north, the fall of ice was nearly continuous, and that, according 

 to AR9TOWSKI, on the west side of Graham Land the thunder of falling ice was 

 continuous. 



Snout Terminations on Land. 



Where the glaciers terminate on land their typical ending is in the shape of a 

 spit or snout. The best example of this is where the Scotia Bay ice-sheet ends on 

 the raised beach — " The Beach " — between Scotia Bay and Uruguay Cove. Others 

 are the various spits or snouts which interrupt the ice-cliffs in places, for example, 

 in Wilton Bay, in Brown's Bay, and those already referred to on the north coast 

 a little to the east of Uruguay Cove ; also along the greater part of the west side of 

 Scotia Bay. The snout ending on The Beach, which was the great exercise-ground for 

 ski-running during our wintering, is shown in the ground-plan, text-fig. 10, on p. 850. 

 The snout has a length of about 400 yards. At the top the slope merges into the very 

 moderate slope of the general part of the ice-sheet, but gradually increases up to a 

 maximum of 18°, then decreases again, the average being from 12° to 15°. At the place 

 marked by an arrow, when sinking a hole for ice thermometers, the air vesicles in the 

 ice were observed to be drawn out into an GH^" shape, the point being in the direction 

 of the head of the arrow. To reach the north corner of The Beach the direction 

 of the ice-flow must therefore have curved considerably, indicating a degree of 

 plasticity which is difficult to reconcile with the rigidity shown by the ice-cliffs. 



The snout was covered with snow throughout the greater part of our stay. Only in 

 February did the upper part of it show hard glacier ice on the surface, although later on 

 photographs taken by the first Argentine party show that the snow covering melted 



