The Geographical Journal (Journal of the Royal Geographical Society): Volume IX, No. 4 [‎188v] (47/172)

366
THE FIRST CROSSING OF SPITSBERGEN—DISCUSSION.
extreme views, which at one time or another have very considerably influenced
geology in England, especially as to changes of climate and their causes. We found
the country full of interest and with so many problems to work out that the
journey was not wasted. And for this we have to thank Sir Martin Conway
for the great amount of trouble he devoted to the equipment and preparations.
The°PBESiDENT: We have seen a number of portraits said to represent Mr.
Garwood. I have some suspicion that some of them represent Sir Martin Conway
himself. I am sure you will be glad to see and welcome Mr. Garwood here, and
hear any remarks which he may have to make on the results of the journey,
Mr. Garwood : After the very thrilling account Sir Martin Conway has given
you of my little adventure, I feel rather an impostor in standing before you to
night, for I ought to be somewhere down that river.
I will not take up your time with any general remarks, but I should like to
describe to you, with the help of a few photographs on the screen, some of the most
interesting points presented by the glaciers we encountered during our expedition
across the island.
But before I do this, I show you a photograph of Sir Martin Conway making a
survey at midnight on the top of Fox peak, and I should like to express my intense
admiration for the manner in which he executed the map which we hold in our
hands to-night. On this particular occasion I shivered for nearly half an hour,
while he was absorbed in his work, with the thermometer several degrees below
freezing-point, and a cutting wind blowing round us from the inland ice.
Turning to the subject of glaciers, this photograph (Fig. I.) shows very clearly
the stratified condition of the moraine which accumulates under the ice. In
England we have the problem of the Glacial Period to work out, and we sometimes
encounter boulder clays, which, it is said, must have been formed under the sea,
because all stratified beds must be formed under water. I just show you that we
have in Spitsbergen moraines, which are stratified, being formed 7 or 8 miles from
the coast, underneath land-ice.
The next slide (Fig. II.) shows a very interesting example of the action of some
of the glaciers in these high latitudes. We have here a glacier composed of several
tributary streams united in one valley; the lower portion of the ice-stream has been
forced through a narrow channel, and the ice and moraine at the bottom have been
bent over at the edges, so that when the ice melts back we shall have a contorted
moraine produced. Ihus we have examples of both stratified and contorted drift,
and both have been formed under land-ice.
In Greenland we have exactly similar examples. I show you these to-night
because it is interesting to note that we have the same phenomena occurring in
Spitsbergen.
Then we have another perplexing problem of the Glacial Period in Britain—
the formation of crescentic moraines. In Spitsbergen we sometimes find tributary
glaciers flowing round the sides of mountains down on to the top of larger ice-
stiearns, and as the ends of these melt, they deposit their terminal moraines on the
surface of the main glacier; this latter flows down the valley, carrying the terminal
moraines with it, and these are melted out and deposited far from the spot where
they were formed (Fig. III.).
\\ e had exactly the same thing taking place in England, notably in the neigh-
our ioo of the 1 ennine range, when glaciers flowed down to the coast round
mouutain ranges whose summits stood up above the ice, resembling, probably, the
Greenland “Nunatakken” of the present day.
Fig. 1\ . is a photograph to show you the terminal moraine of the Ivory glacier,
sistm 0 o rounded water-worn pebbles—an interesting example of a raised beach