BACK TO KLAAS BILLEN BAY
Garwood and I, for exercise, started out on ski, not daring to go
far in the dense fog, for, except by following up the track, it was
impossible to find the camp again once it had passed out of sight.
With the surface snow in such feathery condition, a track would be
obliterated in two minutes, even by a light wind. Caution, therefore,
was essential. The calm continuing, we indulged in longer excursions,
trudging always uphill, and sliding down again with increasing
confidence and ease. Assuredly, for the mere movement, ski-glissading
is first-rate fun. Taking a longer range uphill than before, we came
into a thinner patch of fog, with a quarter-mile reach of vision,
perhaps, and the white ghost of a sun aloft. Something suggested that
a domed hilltop was close ahead. We pushed on, and rose above the fog.
Clear was the atmosphere in all directions below a roof of cloud,
white and level, the far-extending floor of fog through which we had
just emerged, as through a trap-door on to the stage. In front (to
the east), and on our left (to the north), gentle snow-slopes rose to
skylines seemingly near at hand. We could not but push on. The snow was
in perfect condition for sliding, the air delightfully crisp. It was
grateful merely to have left the clammy fog behind. The convex curve
of the snowfield was cause of the constant retreat of the skyline from
our advance; but at last a distant summit peeped over, then another.
Evidently there was a watershed, and from it a view. It developed very
slowly, but at length it was all there--a downhill slope in front, and
then the distance filled with a prospect on which no human eye had ever
gazed. It was strictly an eastward view, for in the north the snowfield
rose higher, and to the south fog enveloped everything.
Whether it was the effect of contrast after the blindness of three
days, or whether the view was absolutely superb, is hard to say; it
certainly impressed us as a very grand sight. We were standing at
the head of a broad snow-white valley, to which a long slope drooped
from our feet, the level of the valley-floor being at least 1000 feet
below us, or more than 2000 feet above sea-level. On either side the
valley was enclosed by faces of rock, bluff-fronts cut out of what
was formerly a big plateau, level with our position. A splintered
nunatak pierced through the glacier below and formed an effective
centre-piece. The glacier itself swept away in its wide, dignified
fashion, first east, then gradually round in a great curve to the
south-east, on its slow crawl towards Wybe Jans Water. The row of
bluffs on the left (north) were seen, one beyond another, stretching
away fainter and fainter to the remote distance, where the last may
look down upon the east coast. The nearest and highest of these bluffs
appears to be the Mount Chydenius of Nordenskiöld. Further north and
masked by clouds were indications of a range of peaks of bolder form.
We returned to camp for our cameras and came back with Nielsen, then
Garwood set forward down the hill to investigate the Hecla Hook rocks
of the nunatak, whilst Nielsen and I went north up the snow-slope. We
had not more than a mile to go before reaching the top of the highest
snow-dome in the watershed area between the glacier systems draining
west to Dickson Bay, south-east to Wybe Jans Water, and south to Klaas
Billen Bay. Whether the glacier to the north bent ultimately west to
Dickson Bay or round to the head of East Fjord of Wijde Bay could not
be determined, for it was soon lost beneath a roof of cloud. The fulmar
petrels that came flying over could have told us. The range of hills
across the north was now clear. There were indications of a valley
between our plateau and them, and of a pass leading over to it from
a bay of the eastern valley. Unfortunately my photographs of this
important view, like all others taken by me on roller film this year,
failed. How I now regret not to have carried some good glass plates to
this point! Only blind notes remain. There was a peak of nearly 4000
feet, 30° west of north, and another due north about six miles away.
Connected with them were many more of smaller dimensions. West of the
peak first mentioned the land dropped below the cloud-level, which
was from 500 to a 1000 feet beneath our feet. All in the Dickson Bay
direction was hidden under piled masses of cloud.
It was a fascinating and tantalising view. One more day’s march would
have solved for certain, instead of merely by inference, the whole
question of the topography of this icy area. Any one of the peaks ahead
would have commanded views towards Wijde Bay, Hinloopen Strait, and
Wybe Jans Water. But with Svensen _hors de combat_ we were helpless.
To leave camp for a whole day was impossible, seeing that, in this
featureless white wilderness, if fog came on, we should never find it
again, whilst, without us, the men left behind could not steer their
way to the coast. I thought, however, that it might be possible to
return by a new route, descending first down the east valley and then
working round to the south; so we went back to the tents and asked
Svensen whether, if we dragged his sledge, he could follow on his
own feet homeward. He eagerly jumped at the suggestion; the stuff was
packed and off we started uphill to the point of our first view at
the head of the east valley. Svensen shuffled along on his ski well
enough, though with a sorry countenance. When he found us going uphill
he protested that that could not be the way back and that we were
going east instead of south. Arrived at the top and seeing the valley
he became mutinous, said if we went down there we should all leave
our bones in this horrible land, and generally protested with all his
might. Nielsen joined his protests, on the ground that, Svensen being
the sort of man he was and apparently ill as well as terrified, we
should probably soon find ourselves obliged to drag him along on a
sledge, and that, while he could manage to walk, it was best to get
him in the direction of the coast, so that, if ultimately he had to be
carried, it might be over as few miles as possible. In fact, we were
cornered; there was nothing for it but to turn coastward.
Before doing so we took one more long gaze over the great glacier and
away to the remote hills that look down on Wybe Jans Water. One of them
must be Mount Edlund, another the White Mountain near Heley’s Sound;
but it was impossible to identify them. These were the peaks climbed
by Nordenskiöld and his party in 1864. As they were the only people
who have ever gazed inland over this same sea of ice, I here insert an
abbreviated translation of their account.[4]
“On August 21, 1864, the weather became so fine that we
returned to land in order to climb Mount Edlund. We landed at
the edge of the glacier, which ends without a cliff. Parallel
with the shore, at a distance of about a thousand yards, there
extends a broad bank of moraine, beyond which comes the glacier
itself. Its lowest part consists of a mounded ice-field, here
and there split by crevasses, for the most part filled with
water. The ascent was easy, and we soon reached the lowest
plateau of the mountain. A grass-slope followed, becoming
steeper higher up and ending near the upper plateau in a
hyperite cliff faced by four-edged columns. This cliff was at
least fifty feet high, and vertical; but the rocks were firm,
and could easily be climbed. Thus we reached the top.
“The view fully came up to our expectations. North-westward,
far as the eye could reach, spread endless hills and plains
of snow, only broken here and there by occasional mountain
peaks standing more or less free. Among these, several remote
mountains, probably surrounding the southern shore of Wijde
Bay, deserve mention. Further round in the north-east a row
of peaks stood up against the horizon. Mount Chydenius was
the most northerly and highest of these great mountains.[5] We
overlooked the whole of Wybe Jans Water from Whale’s Point and
Whale’s Head to its inmost recess near the White Mountain. Many
mountains surrounded by ice reared themselves in the west. The
view over Hinloopen Strait was hindered by thick mist, which
appeared to lie only over this depression and its bordering
hills, as so often happens.
“In order to follow up the mountain ridge extending towards the
north-west, and to learn whether an expedition over the snow
fields involved difficulties, we went from the summit farther
into the interior of the land, which lay almost at the same
height as the peak. It was quite level and covered with hard,
frozen snow, on which walking was as easy as on a floor. This
plain of snow appeared to stretch away to Mount Chydenius, so
that that peak would be easy to reach for the purposes of a
triangulation. We went as far as a distant small hill of snow
[apparently the Mount Svanberg of the map] without any new
experiences, except that fresh peaks kept constantly appearing
above the snow; we accordingly decided to return.
“The shortest way back to the ship led down a rather steep
ice-stream flowing between two hills from the place where we
stood to the same broad, level glacier over which we had come
in the ascent. The true source of the latter was, in fact,
this ice-stream which flows down from the inland ice. We
stood for a time at its edge, telescope in hand, discussing
whether it would be possible to descend by this apparently
easy way, or whether we must go round by the longer route,
somewhat dangerous as it was by reason of the hyperite cliff.
A young “Balsfjording,” who carried our instruments, and had
certainly climbed many a mountain near his home, but probably
never been on a glacier, looked at us with wondering eyes when
we asked him his opinion. His expression seemed to say, “How
can any one be in doubt about so obvious a matter?” Without
a word, he sprang down the ice-slope, theodolite in hand, to
our great terror, for we feared that, as usual, the glacier
would be broken by crevasses, and difficult to cross. Our
anxiety did not last long before we saw him come to a halt,
and just in time, for, on coming nearer, we found that a great
_schrund_ was immediately before him. We crept to its edge and
looked down into the weird, bottomless depth, whose walls were
azure-blue cliffs of ice, here and there covered with white
icicles like stalactites. Lower down everything was lost in a
dark-blue gloom. This crevasse stretched almost the whole way
across the glacier, so that a long detour had to be made before
it could be crossed. Later on we encountered a great number of
such crevasses, some of which we turned, others jumped over,
others again crossed by ice-bridges. Not till we reached the
main stream of the glacier did the crevasses come to an end and
the descent became quick and easy.”
On returning to the coast they took a boat and rowed to the mouth of
Heley’s Sound, some three miles north of which they landed in a little
bay and set up their tent. Next day, August 22, was again fine, so
they set forth to make the ascent of the neighbouring White Mountain.
“We wandered first over the great moraine, which the glacier
has cast down before itself, then climbed the gently sloping
ice-field. This proved to be unexpectedly fatiguing and
disagreeable work. The surface consisted of thawed and refrozen
snow, covered with a crust of faggot-like formation, which
frequently broke up under our tread, so that the foot sank into
the soft snow beneath and was with difficulty withdrawn through
the icecrust, whose sharp edges cut into the boots. The top of
the mountain, hidden at first by the humps of the glacier, came
into view after an hour’s ascent, but was still far away. We
had several hours of work over snow of similar character before
we reached the summit, a small plateau covered with powdery
snow a foot deep upon hard ice.
“The view from this point is perhaps the finest to be found
on Spitsbergen. In the east, about sixty miles away, we saw a
high mountain land with two peaks higher than the rest. [This
was Wiches Land.] Between it and Spitsbergen lay a sea covered
with great, continuous icefloes, obviously impenetrable by a
ship.… In the north-east and north, far as the eye could reach,
appeared the hills of North-East Land and Hinloopen Strait,
with the strait itself and its islands apparently surrounded
by water free of ice. Nordenskiöld recognised Mount Lovén,
ascended by him in 1861.… The interior was likewise displayed
before our eyes, a boundless immeasurable waste of snow, out
of which here and there some mass of rock jutted forth, dark
in contrast with the blinding white surroundings. Only further
away, west and north-west, were there any connected ranges of
mountains. The whole west and north coasts of Wybe Jans Water
were in sight, and the northern part of Barents Land, whose
extreme point consists of a much crevassed snow-mountain ending
steeply in the sea.”
From this interesting digression we must return to our own doings.
Facing south-east we kept along the crest of the highest ground and
made quick progress, for a gentle slope drooped in our favour and the
surface of the snow was in perfect condition for both ski and sledges.
Garwood and I shall ever remember the delight of this midnight march.
High above the clear air that surrounded us was a dark-blue roof of
soft cloud, resting on skyey walls of marvellous colours, with streaks
of stratus across them, reflecting the golden sunlight. The sun itself
was hidden in the north, but beneath it hung a reticulated web, woven
of gold and Tyrian purple, through which shafts of tender light drooped
down like eyelashes upon the snow. All around, the _névé_ went sweeping
away in gentle curves and domes, greyish-white in some places with
purple shadows, bluish-grey in others, here and there strewn with
carpets of sunlight. The rocks, too, wherever they appeared, were rich
in colour, showing their own ruddy or orange tints enforced by the
lustrous atmosphere. There was none of the sharp contrast of black
and white that strikes a superficial observer in high mountain views.
This panorama was a glorious mass of colour, harmonious without rift
and rich without monotony. Just at midnight the cloud-roof opened in
the north and a flood of sunshine fell around and upon us--a veritable
transfiguration and thrilling glory which cannot be told. Entranced
with beauty, we marched on and on over the wide snowfield, with a sense
of boundless space, a feeling of freedom, a joy as in the ownership of
the whole universe--emotions that, in my experience, only arise in the
great clean places of the earth, where nothing lives and nothing grows,
the great deserts and the wide snowfields. Green country, after such
regions, is land soiled by mildew.
Coming, in about seven miles march, to the point where the slope down
to the Nordenskiöld Glacier began to steepen, we halted, not from
fatigue, but because we were loath to quit the far-seeing uplands
and wall ourselves in between a valley’s sides. So we pitched the
camp about 3 A.M., with the doors opening to the south. The eastward
views were better displayed than before. We could see Wybe Jans Water
with Barents Land beyond, then a series of long rock-faces supporting
high-domed, snowy plateaus, stretching round to the Terrier on the
left side of the Nordenskiöld Glacier, whilst De Geer Peak came last,
looking from this point like a pyramid with its top storey horizontally
stratified. The low sun shone golden on the snowfield, casting blue
shadows. All round, near the horizon, the sky was clear below the soft,
thin cloud-roof, through which the blueness of the vault of heaven was
plainly seen. The remote hills were indigo, patched with orange, gold,
and pink. White mists lay in hollows of the snow, motionless. Ivory
gulls flew about, projecting their silver plumage against the blue
shadows. The air was still. Not a sound broke the perfection of the
silence.
It was afternoon of the 19th when we set forward again over the good,
hard snow, the still air seeming warm, and the sun shining softly
behind a thin grey roof of cloud. All round was a light-blue frieze of
sky with cloud-flakes in lines below, and then the faint blue-and-white
hills. In the south the burnished surface of Klaas Billen Bay, shining
between purple shores, reflected the sunlight. The beauty of the scene
sapped our energies. We wanted to look at it, not to haul sledges. But
Svensen said he could do no work, so hauling was the order of our day.
Needless to say that many halts were made on every kind of excuse,
and every halt was celebrated by the smoke of pipes. Garwood took the
opportunity to instruct me in the true art of pipe-loading. “Jam the
tobacco in as tight as you can, and then loosen it with a corkscrew” is
his formula. I am witness to the labour it cost him in practice, and
the tenacity of his adherence to an adopted principle. One advantage
of travelling with sledges is that you always have comfortable seats
ready. It would have been a sin, at least a folly, not to avail
ourselves of them. We were neither sinners nor fools after this kind.
Yet on the whole good progress was made, for we walked fast and kept
going for many hours. The view scarcely changed. That we were coming
to lower levels was obvious, but the hills in front seemed no nearer
after three hours’ marching than at the start. Ahead were a few rocks
emerging from the glacier. We thought them close at hand, but they
kept their distance. Not for five hours were they left behind. The
actual motion, however, was pleasant; ski and sledges often ran of
themselves. Only Nielsen was miserable with his Canadian snowshoes, and
perforce lagged behind. “This,” he said, “is the worst thing ever a
man put on his feet--miserables!” His own Lapp shoes, too, gave him no
satisfaction. Melted snow found a way through them. “They should have
been soaked,” he said, “with two parts Stockholm tar and three parts
cod-liver oil, boiled together and put on hot. It should be rubbed
well in with a rag while it’s hot. That will make boots waterproof and
keep them soft for three months in spite of wettings. That is what our
Norwegian fishermen use.” Mr. Frederick Jackson, however, tells me that
he tried this composition and found it no better than patent dubbin.
A flat plain followed a long and steady descent. Here, at a level of
about 1300 feet, the snow began to be bad. A foot of new snow lay
upon the ice. It was in places waterlogged, for there were no open
crevasses, and now the sun had attained power to set things thawing
fast. The blue lakes we saw when coming up existed no more; drifted
snow and frost had abolished them altogether. We were well below our
camping place at the foot of Mount De Geer, but on the opposite side of
the glacier, approaching its left bank. A wide water-channel came, with
a rushing torrent in it, flowing over blue ice between banks of snow.
It was long before we found an overhanging place where a leap would
take a man from bank to bank. Thence a flat but watery area intervened
before our goal was reached at the extreme left of the glacier and
right below the highest point of the long Terrier ridge, to the summit
of which we intended to climb next day. Its cliffs were loud with the
sound of countless birds, whose full-throated cries, mingled together
and wafted afar as a raucous hum, were audible long before a bird came
in sight. From camp we could see them in their thousands, perched in
rows upon ledges or soaring about the cliff--fulmars, little auks, and
glaucus gulls. Their feathers were scattered all about, whilst numerous
tracks showed that this breeding-place was no secret to the foxes--the
only animals that rove over the icy interior of Spitsbergen.
Our projected climb was not to be made, for rain came on in the night.
We awoke (20th) to find clouds heavy upon us, and all but the Terrier’s
foundations obliterated. It was a disappointment, but there were
compensations, for the immediate neighbourhood proved unexpectedly
interesting. This discovered, we loaded the sledges and sent them down
with the men, under orders not to stop till they reached Klaas Billen
Bay. Svensen had no longer any excuse for malingering. Yesterday, with
every hour’s advance, his face became rounder, his back straighter,
his movements more active. The fear of destruction was in reality his
main disease, aggravated no doubt by cold and exposure to the storm.
He acknowledged as much later on. The suggestion that he should hasten
down to the bay, whether dragging a sledge or not, seemed nothing less
than a reprieve from sentence of death. He set off with alacrity.
Garwood had observed a curious piece of glacier a few hundred yards
away from camp. It was mounded in a peculiar manner, calling for
investigation. On approaching it, the mounds were perceived to be
arches of ice, barrel vaults perfectly regular in form. Their origin
was presently self-explained. A wide and deep stream of surface
drainage-water habitually flows near the foot of the Terrier. Reaching
a level place, the speed of flow is reduced so that the surface becomes
frozen over in cold weather. Snow falls upon the ice thus formed, and a
roof is made, the remains of which, even at this advanced period of the
summer, were two feet thick or more. The glacier in its onward movement
is compressed between the Terrier and the De Geer range opposite,
and every portion of it feels this compression, which, operating
on the frozen roof of the river, bends it up into an icy tunnel of
regular form. By degrees parts of the tunnel fall in, and thus the
detached arches are left. On the King’s Bay Glacier we afterwards saw
more arches of similar origin. It is to the strength of the arctic
winter’s frost, rather than to the amount of the annual snowfall,
that Spitsbergen glaciers owe their peculiar phenomena, to which the
glaciers of high mountain regions in the temperate and tropical parts
of the world present no parallels.
Another and still more remarkable outcome of the same forces presently
attracted our attention. We were descending the left side of the
glacier below the Terrier and approaching the point at the end of the
mountain where a great tributary glacier comes in from the east. The
two ice-streams, joining, compress one another laterally, and cause
a bulging or convexity of their surfaces, which only attain a common
uniformity of level at a distance of a mile or so. By this means a
triangular hollow is formed between the glaciers, and backed against
the foot of the intervening hill. A lake collects in this hollow, and
is drained by a stream, which, gradually cutting down its bed as the
year advances, lowers the level of the lake. When the winter comes,
fresh snow falls into and blocks this stream, damming back the waters
so that the level of the lake rises. Its surface, of course, freezes;
the ice-covering, with the thawed, refrozen collection of snow upon it,
attaining a thickness of four feet and more. On the return of spring,
when the snows begin to melt, fresh quantities of water find their way
into the lake and raise the heavy ice-sheet. The bed of last year’s
streams is of course filled up with hard-frozen snow, so that there is
no exit for the waters till the cup is full. The moment it begins to
overflow the cutting of the channel takes place. The pent-up waters are
let loose and evidently operate with extraordinary force, excavating a
deep cañon out of the glacier. The floating ice acquires a momentum,
whereby it not merely gets ripped and broken up, but forced forward on
to the dry glacier ahead, great tables of it being turned up on end
or piled on one another two or three deep. When most of the water is
drawn off and the level of the lake is greatly reduced, the convulsion
ceases and only the deep cañon and the wild ruin of the ice-blocks,
strewn abroad over half a mile square of the glacier, remain to show
what mighty forces have been let loose.
During the summer we came upon several such burst lakes at the
junctions of glaciers. The most striking of them was this one at
the extremity of the Terrier, for, owing to the configuration of
the ice, it is unusually large and, besides (like the Märjelen Sea
by the Aletsch Glacier), is the receptacle into which many icebergs
fall. These icebergs in the winter are frozen in, and tossed out in
a wild ruin when the lake bursts. The chaos of strewn ice-blocks is
visible from far off, but its origin is not then discernible. Masses
of ice were heaped against one another to a height of forty feet or
even more. The blue cañon was so deep and undercut that we could not
see to the bottom. It was more than sixty feet in depth. There was
something inexpressibly weird in the silence and repose of this icy
ruin surviving the wild turmoil of its birth. The catastrophe must
have been recent, for the icebergs retained the blue colouring and
transparency of their submerged parts. We spent a long time clambering
about the _débris_, then hastened forward on our ski and caught up with
the sledges.
A lunch halt was made at the top of a steeper slope, just where
crevasses began to be numerous. By keeping well round to the left
their intricacy was easily avoided. Where the descent was made they
were relatively small and for the most part wedged with winter snow,
strong enough to bear. Leaving the men to guide the sledges down, we
gaily shot the slope, crevasses and all, on our ski. Though the ice
was rough and much honeycombed, we covered a mile of descent in a few
minutes, “everything safely,” as our dragoman used to say on the Nile
in a gale of wind. At the foot, where the glacier became more level,
prosaic marching order had to be resumed. Klaas Billen Bay was nearing,
a leaden purple, almost black expanse, dotted over with countless
icebergs in the gloomy beclouded evening light. The final descent over
the steep moraine was even more difficult than the ascent, for the
useful snow-strip had melted away and the stones were more unstable
than before. The sledges were seriously knocked about in the process of
lowering; the metal covering of the runners was stripped off and the
runners themselves smashed in two places. They just held together so
that we could drag them over the _débris_ fan and the wide bog beyond
to where our camp was standing uninjured, with the whaleboat drawn up
beside it.
The general result of this inland excursion was highly satisfactory,
notwithstanding our misfortune with Svensen. It enabled us to record
in outline the general structure of the area included between Wijde
Bay, Dickson Bay, Ice Fjord, Wybe Jans Water, and Hinloopen Strait.
Before the recently undertaken exploration of the interior, Spitsbergen
was supposed to be covered, like Greenland, with a big icesheet.
There were known to be some mountains, but they were described as
nunataks--islands of rock poked up through the enveloping ice. The
nature of the Greenland icesheet is well known; it buries the whole
interior beneath its vast thickness, hiding hills and valleys together
within its mass, and flowing down over them on all sides to the sea,
toward or into which it sends tongues of ice through every gap. All the
glaciers in Greenland are but tongues of a single icesheet. Spitsbergen
was supposed to resemble Greenland in this respect. In 1896 we proved
this view to be erroneous as to the central portion of the island. The
belt of land bounded on the south by Bell Sound and on the north by
Ice Fjord, and stretching across from sea to sea, is absolutely devoid
of any icesheet. It is a complex of mountains and valleys, amongst
which are many glaciers indeed, as there are amidst the mountains of
Central Europe, but no continuous covering of ice. Each glacier is a
separate unit, having its own catchment area and drainage system. The
valleys are boggy and relatively fertile, the hillsides bare of snow in
summer up to more than 1000 feet above sea-level. There are lines of
depression between Ice Fjord and Bell Sound, and between Sassen Bay and
the east coast, which are absolutely snow-free throughout the arctic
summer.
[Illustration: THE COLORADO PLATEAU.]
We had a suspicion that the area between Foreland Sound and Ice Fjord
was not covered by an icesheet, but we still thought it probable that
one would be found in the region north-east of Ice Fjord. The result
of our present expedition was to prove this not to be the case. We
traversed a great deal of glacier and snowfield, but none belonging to
a true icesheet. The whole of this region, which I have named Garwood
Land, after my excellent companion, is a glaciated mountain and valley
system. Each glacier in it is a clearly-marked unit, with its evident
watersheds dividing it from its neighbours. North of the Chydenius
range, by which Garwood Land is bounded, there does come a true
icesheet covering the whole of New Friesland and flowing down to the
sea on all sides. North-East Land, too, is buried under an icesheet.
These are the only ones in the Spitsbergen archipelago.
The mountains of Garwood Land are remains of a denuded plateau,
resembling those of the Sassendal region. They have been carved out
by a denuding agent eating a series of valleys back into the plateau.
Readers of my former book, “The First Crossing of Spitsbergen,” will
remember how many examples of the rapid formation and extension of
valleys by the eating back of the head-waters are there recorded.
The Colorado Berg north of the Sassendal was the best example of the
process. That plateau, now bare of ice, is being rapidly cut up into
separate hills by the excavation of a series of deep, narrow cañons,
which will widen and creep further back year by year. Now, the hills
of Garwood Land are of a similar type. The wide, deep valley, into the
head of which we looked down from our farthest point, sends back into
the plateau (or remnant of a plateau) a number of tributary valleys,
all of the same deep, gently sloping, steep-headed type. From many
indications we concluded that a series of similar valley-heads and
cliffs lay to the eastward of our whole route from where we turned back
as far as the Terrier. This row of cliffs and bluffs probably flanks
the eastern watershed of the Nordenskiöld Glacier. The bad weather that
prevented our ascent of the Terrier prevented also the verification of
this hypothesis.
If we could assume that Garwood Land was at any time considerably less
glacier-covered than it now is, so that its valleys were bog-bottomed
like the Sassendal, and its uplands resembled the Colorado Berg, it
would be easy to account for the present configuration of the land
surface. We should say that it was formed by aqueous denudation, and
subsequently covered up by the increase of the ice. It is certain
that there has been a great increase in the ice-supply on the land
hereabouts during the last two centuries, for in that time the Negri
Glacier has advanced at least fifteen, probably twenty, miles into the
sea along a front fifteen miles in width. This fact, however, does
not suffice as foundation for so great an assumption. It is rather to
the steady elevation of the land that we must look for a solution.
Everywhere in Franz Josef Land and Spitsbergen the land is known to
be rising. The western belt of the island has been longer exposed to
denudation than the east belt. The latter, therefore, has perhaps been
later elevated. It came up from the sea as relatively flat ground. As
its elevation continued this flat ground was raised into a plateau.
At first it did not reach the level of perpetual snow, so that whilst
rising it was being cut down into valleys and cañons by the action of
water, pouring off from the plateau over its edge, and hurrying down
a frost-split rock-face. The bed of such a valley has of necessity a
very gentle slope. The head is steep, almost a cliff, the whole face of
which is being continually stripped off, so that the valley, once begun
by a waterfall over the edge of the horizontally stratified plateau,
penetrates steadily backward.
These valleys once formed, with their steep heads and sides, would
maintain themselves even after the remains of the plateau were covered
with an icesheet and the valleys filled with glaciers. There is no
need to predicate for the glaciers any power of erosion; that is not
the way arctic icesheets act, for the upper layers of ice flow over
the lower at a far greater speed than is the case in glaciers under
lower latitudes. Given an existing cliff, however, with a glacier
below it, and the denuding agencies of frost and water at work upon
it, that cliff tends to maintain itself and to eat its way back into
the mountain mass behind, for its _débris_ fall upon the glacier below
and are carried away; they do not pile themselves up into a protecting
slope at the base of the cliff. This eating-back process will go
forward with unequal speed according to the varying qualities of the
rocks. Bays will thus be formed and will eat back into the plateau,
just as the gullies eat back in the Sassendal region, only the bays
will tend to grow wider in proportion to their depth in a glaciated
country than in a region mainly bare of snow and ice.
For this process to begin it is necessary that somewhere a rock-face
should be exposed to the air. The exposure may be produced by a fault,
or by a denuding process begun before the land was much glaciated. We
are in no position yet to assert how the process commenced in Garwood
Land, but that the bays, valleys, and cliffs now existing are being
maintained in the manner above described is certain. If the ice were
again to cover up the Colorado Berg and the hills opposite, and were
to flow into and down the Sassendal to Sassen Bay, the aspect of that
region would resemble that of Garwood Land to-day. It is only in the
case of a country like Greenland, entirely buried under an icecap
thousands of feet thick, through which, save along the coast, no
rock appears and no cliff is exposed--it is only in such a country
that the conservative action of ice is complete and the modelling of
an elevated land-mass into hills is practically arrested. Hence the
scientific importance of distinguishing between a proper icesheet
(in the Greenland sense) and a mere assemblage of separate glaciers,
however large in volume and intimate in their connexion with one
another. An icesheet, or inland-ice, operates in a totally different
manner from a series of glaciers. Save in North-East Land and in the
part of Spitsbergen called New Friesland, there is no proper icesheet
in Spitsbergen, and the phrase “inland-ice” should be expunged from
maps and descriptions of regions to which it is not applicable. A
chief and no unimportant result of our explorations in the interior of
Spitsbergen is this discovery that the parts supposed to be enveloped
in an icesheet are in fact merely glacier regions.