THE RETREATING ICE 
The riegel are overridden and planed down, the fiords 
are cut out, the lakes are deepened. Later the snowfall 
diminishes and the erosive power decreases, and the glaciers 
dwindle through all the stages recorded by Hobbs. The 
Beardmore Glacier with its tributaries largely entering 
at grade, the Mackay with a few ' hanging ' glaciers, the 
Ferrar with a preponderating number of tributaries 
hanging on the slopes of the main trough, are examples 
of the earlier stages in this decline. The Koettlitz with 
its tributaries 5 miles back from the main glacier and the 
Taylor Glacier with its extraordinary ice-free outlet 
trough 25 miles long are later stages in the retrocession 
of the ice mantle. 
