GEOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS 



Sea for probably fully 100 miles north of Ross Island. 

 Another view is that they may be local developments of 

 ice resulting from a coalescing of a number of small neve 

 fields developed in the cirques among the foot-hills of the 

 plateau ranges. These foot-hills are frequently as much 

 as 10 to 20 miles back from the edge of the coast-line. 



Piedmont Glaciers Afloat. — Three well-marked ex- 

 amples of this type of glacier came under our notice. 

 The first was Glacier Tongue, between our winter quarters 

 and the old winter quarters of the Discovery at Hut 

 Point. Glacier Tongue, as shown on the Admiralty 

 Charts and the Reports of the Discovery expedition, is 

 an elongated mass of ice stretching from the shore-line 

 into the sea for a distance of about five miles. It has a 

 width of about half a mile near its seaward end, and 

 about a mile where it rests against the land. Both on 

 its north and south side the Tongue is deeply indented 

 with a number of bays. Its height above sea-level varies 

 from about 40 ft. up to nearly 100 ft. While the Nimrod 

 was lying alongside this remarkable piedmont in February 

 1908, Captain England took soundings at about a mile 

 east of its seaward end, and got a depth of 157 fathoms. 

 As the maximum height of the glacier above sea-level 

 does not here exceed about 40 ft., and the sea is 940 ft. 

 deep, if the ice were aground it would have only one 

 twenty-third of its volume above water, which of 

 course is physically impossible. We must, therefore, 

 conclude that this part of Glacier Tongue is afloat. 

 At the same time it should be mentioned that 

 alongside of this glacier there are traces of cracks, which 

 some observers have considered to be tide-cracks. There 

 may be true tide-cracks near the shoreward end of the 

 glacier, but we were not satisfied that the cracks noticed 

 near its seaward end were really of the nature of tide- 

 cracks. While waiting for the arrival of the Southern 



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