220 LAMPLUGH : SHELLY MORAINE OF THE SEFSTROM GLACIER, 
the true Ice-sheet or Greenland type of glaciation. the major part 
of the land being covered by a thick mantle ^^'hich obliterates all 
its irregularities ; but in West Spitsbergen, even where the ice- 
mantle is broadest, its shape and slope are mainly dependent upon 
the outlines of the land. 
If the winter precipitation were heavier, there is no doubt 
that the present climate is cold enough to foster a vast extension 
of the West Spitsbergen ice-fields. As the island has been, until 
the last two or three years, uninhabited during the long winter 
save by an occasional hunter or exploring party, we have fev^' 
<lata on which to estimate the total annual precipitation. At 
Treurenberg Bay in the north-eastern part of West Spitsbergen, 
the records of a Swedish scientific expedition^ give the precipita- 
tion for the year, August, 1899 to August, 1900, by one method of 
o])servation as 176.49 mm. (about 7 inches), and b}- another 
method as 158.03 mm. (about 6J inches), more than two-thirds of 
A\ hich fell during the summer and autumn. But it is known that 
the rate varies greatly in different parts of the island, and it is 
thought that the average ma}' reach about 10 inches per annum. 
This implies that the climate is essentally arid, like that of many 
other high arctic and antarctic lands ; though in high latitudes 
aridity is disguised by the fact that the moisture falls almost entirely 
in the form of snow, and remains more or less permanently at the 
surface. In the tropics, with the same precipitation the land 
would be a waterless desert durmg most of the year. 
The precipitation is greatest near the west coast, along the 
mountainous ridge which culminates in the north in peaks of over 
4,000 feet ; and it is in this region that the glaciers are most 
numerous and that they most frequently descend to the sea. In 
the interior, many of the valleys are empty of ice or contain 
glaciers onl\' at their heads or in their minor branches ; and with 
our present imperfect Imowledge of the country, it is often 
difficult to understand the local conditions which have determined 
the presence or absence of ice-streams in contiguous and apparently 
similar valleys. In the countr}^ around Ice Fiord — the part of 
the island that we visited — the tide-water glaciers are practically 
confined to the northern shores and inlets of the Fiord, while on 
I " Missions Scientifiques bour la Mcsiire d'un Arc du Meridian au Spizberg." Mission Suedoise, 
tome II., Sec. VIII. " Meteorologie (1904), pp. 214-5. 
