THE HEART OF THE ANTARCTIC 



with the north wall of the glacier by a ridge of the same 

 granite over a thousand feet high. 



We were obliged at the time that this first became clear 

 to us to move further towards the centre of the ice, as 

 the edges of the glacier had been swept clear of snow, and 

 Armytage did not care to camp on the bare ice with a 

 strong wind blowing straight towards the ice-clilF. After 

 the camp had been pitched, Armytage volunteered to go 

 with me, and we walked down to to the edge of the cliff 

 opposite the north wall of the glacier and followed this 

 cliff round until we were opposite the Sohtary Rocks, 

 thus clearly demonstrating that there is no passage for 

 the glacier ice to the north of these rocks, but that they 

 are the butt end of a peninsula banking up the ice above 

 and forcing it round to the southern side, where it de- 

 scends as a series of ice-falls. At the foot of the cliff, in 

 the corner made by the isthmus and the main mass of the 

 Obelisk Range, there lies a lake of considerable size which 

 was fed by a stream from under the Solitary Rocks and by 

 many torrents from the gullies in the mountains. This 

 lake gives rise to the main drainage river, which follows 

 the north wall of the glacier. I subsequently saw this 

 river at its mouth, and found that in reaching the sea it 

 splits into a number of sluggish distributaries which have 

 deposited a considerable delta of fine detritus at the 

 eastern extremity of the Dry Valley. The amount of 

 river denudation, although accomplished in a very small 

 portion of the year, must be of no mean geological result, 

 since all the many streams I saw during this thaw were 

 choked with fine sediment, and the lake was of a yellow 

 colour owing to the amount of fine material held in sus- 

 pension in its waters. 



At two points I was able, during the next day, to 

 gain access to the Solitary Rocks. These consist of 

 alternate bands of black and yellow rock which are identi- 



336 



