GEOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS 



directly fed from the inland neve fields. It appears to 

 represent an old piedmont- afloat, which is in the act of 

 dwindling away from want of supplies of ice from the 

 interior. 



Thirdly, the Drygalski Ice Barrier Tongue is also 

 of the nature of a piedmont-afloat. It is probably 

 floating for at least three-quarters of the distance of 

 30 miles to which it projects from the shore into 

 the sea. The surface of this glacier, where it leaves 

 the shore-line, is extremely rough and rugged, being 

 traversed, as stated in the narrative, by an immense 

 number of chasms, pressure ridges and crevasses. On 

 the south side, where the ice was still unbroken when we 

 reached the glacier on November 30, 1908, the old sea 

 ice was forced up into strong pressure ridges. The whole 

 appearance suggested to us that this glacier is moving 

 actively from inland seawards. We could see with our 

 field-glasses that at a distance of about 50 miles inland 

 it descended by steep ice-falls from a high plateau beyond. 

 At the point where we crossed it, the glacier rose to an 

 altitude at its centre of about 200 ft. above sea-level. 

 It was here 12 miles in width. Further eastwards and 

 therefore seawards, the glacier ice was more and more 

 levelled up with snow, until eventually it passed into a 

 true barrier type with a comparatively smooth surface. 



Captain Evans, after he brought the Nimrod into 

 " Relief Inlet," where he picked up the Northern Party 

 just returned from the Magnetic Pole, sounded alongside 

 of the Drygalski Glacier and found a depth of 655 to 668 

 fathoms, at a distance of only about 18 miles from the 

 rocky shore-line. 



As the Barrier here rises to a height not exceeding 

 50 ft. above sea-level it must surely be afloat. 



During the few weeks of thaw, in December and 

 January, torrents of water must rush ofl* from this glacier 



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