Download the full version and explore a variety of test banks

or solution manuals at https://testbankpack.com

Solution Manual for Objects First with Java A

Practical Introduction Using BlueJ 6th Edition
Barnes Kolling 0134477367 9780134477367

_____ Tap the link below to start your download _____

http://testbankpack.com/download/solution-manual-for-
objects-first-with-java-a-practical-introduction-using-
bluej-6th-edition-barnes-kolling-0134477367-9780134477367/

Find test banks or solution manuals at testbankpack.com today!

Here are some recommended products for you. Click the link to
download, or explore more at testbankpack.com

Test Bank for Starting Out with Java From Control

Structures through Objects 6th Edition Gaddis 0133957055
9780133957051
http://testbankpack.com/download/test-bank-for-starting-out-with-java-
from-control-structures-through-objects-6th-edition-
gaddis-0133957055-9780133957051/

Solution Manual for Starting Out with Java From Control

Structures through Objects 5th Edition Gaddis 0132855836
9780132855839
http://testbankpack.com/download/solution-manual-for-starting-out-
with-java-from-control-structures-through-objects-5th-edition-
gaddis-0132855836-9780132855839/

Test Bank for Starting Out with Java From Control

Structures through Objects 5th Edition Gaddis 0132855836
9780132855839
http://testbankpack.com/download/test-bank-for-starting-out-with-java-
from-control-structures-through-objects-5th-edition-
gaddis-0132855836-9780132855839/

Solution Manual for Calculus An Applied Approach Brief

International Metric Edition 10th Edition by Larson ISBN
1337290572 9781337290579
http://testbankpack.com/download/solution-manual-for-calculus-an-
applied-approach-brief-international-metric-edition-10th-edition-by-
larson-isbn-1337290572-9781337290579/
Solution Manual for Organizational Behavior Science The
Real World and You 8th Edition Nelson Quick 1111825866
9781111825867
http://testbankpack.com/download/solution-manual-for-organizational-
behavior-science-the-real-world-and-you-8th-edition-nelson-
quick-1111825866-9781111825867/

Solution Manual for Managerial Accounting Canadian 3rd

Edition Braun Tietz Beaubien 0134151844 9780134151847

http://testbankpack.com/download/solution-manual-for-managerial-
accounting-canadian-3rd-edition-braun-tietz-
beaubien-0134151844-9780134151847/

Test Bank for Contemporary Psychiatric Mental Health

Nursing 3rd Edition by Kneisl Trigoboff ISBN 0132557770
9780132557771
http://testbankpack.com/download/test-bank-for-contemporary-
psychiatric-mental-health-nursing-3rd-edition-by-kneisl-trigoboff-
isbn-0132557770-9780132557771/

Test Bank for Database Processing Fundamentals Design and

Implementation 13th Edition by Kroenke and Auer ISBN
0133058352 9780133058352
http://testbankpack.com/download/test-bank-for-database-processing-
fundamentals-design-and-implementation-13th-edition-by-kroenke-and-
auer-isbn-0133058352-9780133058352/

Solution Manual for Essentials of Strategic Management The

Quest for Competitive Advantage 4th Edition by Gamble
Thompson and Peteraf ISBN 0078112893 9780078112898
http://testbankpack.com/download/solution-manual-for-essentials-of-
strategic-management-the-quest-for-competitive-advantage-4th-edition-
by-gamble-thompson-and-peteraf-isbn-0078112893-9780078112898/
Test Bank for South Western Federal Taxation 2017
Essentials of Taxation Individuals and Business Entities
20th Edition Raabe Maloney Young Nellen 130587482X
9781305874824
http://testbankpack.com/download/test-bank-for-south-western-federal-
taxation-2017-essentials-of-taxation-individuals-and-business-
entities-20th-edition-raabe-maloney-young-
nellen-130587482x-9781305874824/
 Solution Manual for Objects First with Java A Practical
Introduction Using BlueJ 6th Edition Barnes Kolling
0134477367 9780134477367

Full link download

Solution Manual

https://testbankpack.com/p/solution-manual-for-objects-first-with-java-

a-practical-introduction-using-bluej-6th-edition-barnes-kolling-

0134477367-9780134477367/

Exercise 2.2

Zero.

Exercise 2.3

If too much money is inserted the machine takes it all - no refund.

If there isn't enough money inserted, it still prints out the ticket.

Exercise 2.5

It looks almost completely the same. Only the price on the ticket is different.

Exercise 2.6

The outer part of the student class:

public class Student

{
}

The outer part of the LabClass class:

public class LabClass

{
}
Exercise 2.7

Yes, the order of public and class matters.

Exercise 2.8

It is possible to leave out the word public.

Exercise 2.9
It is not possible to leave out the word class.
Exercise 2.10

Fields:
price
balance
total

Constructors:
TicketMachine

Methods:
getPrice
getBalance
insertMoney
printTicket

Exercise 2.11

It does not have any return type. The name of the constructor is the same as the
name of the class.
Exercise 2.12

int
Student
Server

Exercise 2.13

alive
tutor
game

Exercise 2.14

Student, Server, Person and Game

Exercise 2.15

The exact order matters.

Exercise 2.16

Yes, it always necessary to have a semicolon after a field declaration.

Exercise 2.17

private int status;

Exercise 2.18

It belongs to the class Student.

Exercise 2.19

It has two parameters. One is of type String and the other of type double.

Exercise 2.20

It would be reasonable to expect the types to be the same as the two parameters
(String and double).

Can't really assume anything about the names, but probably something like title
and price.
Exercise 2.21
name = petsName;

Exercise 2.22

public Date(String month, int day, int year)

Exercise 2.23

Aside from their names, the only difference is that getPrice() returns the value of
the price field whereas getBalance() returns the value of the balance field.

Exercise 2.24

How much money have I inserted into the machine?

Exercise 2.25

No. There is no direct link between the name of a method and the name of the
field. However, it is a convention to use a name for the method that clearly links it
to the field.

Exercise 2.26
public int getTotal()
{
return total;
}

Exercise 2.27

Missing return statement.

Exercise 2.28

The header for getPrice() has an int as return type.

The header for printTicket() has void as return type.
Exercise 2.29

No.
Because they don't need to return anything.
Yes. Both headers have void as return types.

Exercise 2.31

It has a return type (void) and constructors do not have return types. It also does
not have the same name as the class it is in.
Exercise 2.32

price = cost;

Exercise 2.33

score = score + points;

Exercise 2.34

It is a mutator.

Use an inspector to view the current score, then call the increase method with a
positive parameter value and observe that score increases by that value.

Alternatively, if score has an accessor method; call the accessor, then call
increase, and then call the accessor once again to verify that it returns the
updated value, indicating that the field has been modified.
Exercise 2.35

price = price - amount;

Exercise 2.36
Note that no quote marks are printed, just the following:
My cat has green eyes.

Exercise 2.37
public void prompt()
{
System.out.println("Please insert the correct amount of
money.");
}

Exercise 2.38

Instead of printing out the actual price of the ticket, it displays the word "price":

# price cents.
Exercise 2.39

Prints out the exact same string as in exercise 2.38

Exercise 2.40

No, because neither uses the value of the price field in the println statement.

Exercise 2.41
public void showPrice()
{
System.out.println("The price of a ticket is " + price + "
cents.");
}

Exercise 2.42

They display different prices. This is because each ticket machine object has its
own price field.
The price that was set in one ticket machine does not affect the other ticket
machine’s price.
The unique value of each ticket machine's price field is substituted into the println
statement when
the method is called.
Exercise 2.43

public TicketMachine()
{
price = 1000;
balance = 0;
total = 0;
}

When constructing a TicketMaching object you will not be prompted for a

parameter value.
The tickets always have a price of 1000 cents.

Exercise 2.44
public TicketMachine()
{
price = 1000;
balance = 0;
total = 0;
}

public TicketMachine(int ticketCost)

{
price = ticketCost;
balance = 0;
total = 0;
}
Exercise 2.45
public void empty()
{
total = 0;
}
It needs no parameters.
It is a mutator.
Exercise 2.46

The balance does not change when an error message is printed.

Inserting zero results in an error message.

Exercise 2.47

This version does not print an error message when zero is inserted.
Other than that, it does not change the observable behavior of the method.
Exercise 2.48
Note the importance of using <= rather than < in the rewritten condition.

if(amount <= 0) {
System.out.println("Use a positive amount rather than: " +
amount);
}
else {
balance = balance + amount;
}

Exercise 2.49

The field is: isVisible.

It determines whether the circle was visible or not.
Yes. As a circle is either visible or not, only two states (values) are needed.
Exercise 2.50

In the printTicket method of Code 2.8 the total is increased only by the price of the
ticket, and not the full balance.
The balance is then decreased by the price.

Exercise 2.51
The else and associated block can be removed – if statements do not have to have
an else part.

If an illegal amount is used, no error message is printed but the method otherwise
works correctly.
Exercise 2.52

It could never become negative. The value in balance is checked in printTicket to

ensure that it is always at least as large as price, so when price is subtracted
balance cannot become negative.

Exercise 2.54
saving = price * discount;

Exercise 2.55
mean = total / count;

Exercise 2.56
if(price > budget) {
System.out.println("Too expensive.");
}
else {
System.out.println("Just right.");
}

Exercise 2.57
if(price > budget) {
System.out.println("Too expensive. Your budget is only: " +
budget);
}
else {
System.out.println("Just right.");
}

Exercise 2.58

Because balance is set to zero and then this new value is returned rather than the
old one. The method will always return zero. It can be tested by inserting an
amount, and then calling refundBalance(). The original would then return the
amount inserted, but the new method returns 0.
Exercise 2.59

An error is printed: unreachable statement.

A return statement ends (exits) the method. Code after a return statement can
therefore never be executed.

Exercise 2.60
The variable price is being re-declared as a local variable in the constructor – this
is the effect of the word int in front of it. This local variable ‘hides’ the field of the
same name. So the ticket price is never assigned to the price field.

Exercise 2.61
public int emptyMachine()
{
int oldTotal = total;
total = 0;
return oldTotal;
}

Exercise 2.62
public void printTicket()
{
int amountLeftToPay = price - balance;

if(amountLeftToPay <= 0) {
// Simulate the printing of a ticket.
 System.out.println("##################");
System.out.println("# The BlueJ Line");
System.out.println("# Ticket");
System.out.println("# " + price + " cents.");
System.out.println("##################");
System.out.println();
// Update the total collected with the price.
total += price;
// Reduce the balance by the prince.
balance -= price;
}
else {
System.out.println("You must insert at least: " +
amountLeftToPay + " more cents.");
}
}

Exercise 2.63

You would need fields to store the prices of each of the tickets that the machine
can issue.

You would need a method to select which type of ticket you would want.

It will not be necessary to modify many of the existing methods, if the price field is
updated each time you select a new ticket type. You would probably need to
modify the constructor, to allow several ticket prices.
Exercise 2.64

Name: getCode
Return type: String
Exercise 2.65

Name: setCredits
Parameter name: creditValue
Parameter type: int
Exercise 2.66

public class Person

{
}

Exercise 2.67

private String name;

private int age;
private String code;
private int credits;

Exercise 2.68

public Module(String moduleCode)

{
code = moduleCode;
}

Exercise 2.69

public Person(String myName, int myAge)

{
name = myName;
age = myAge;
}

Exercise 2.70

The return type should not be void.

public int getAge()

{
return age;
}

Exercise 2.71

public String getName()

{
return name;
}

Exercise 2.72

public void setAge(int newAge)

{
age = newAge;
}

Exercise 2.73

public void printDetails()

{
System.out.println("The name of this person is " + name);
}

Exercise 2.74

student1 : Student
name: Benjamin Jonson
id: 738321
credits: 0
Exercise 2.75

"Henr557"

Exercise 2.76
It opens the editor with the source code for the Student class. It displays a
message: StringIndexOutOfBoundsException
This happens because the method getLoginName expects the name to be at least 4
characters long and "djb" is only 3 characters.
Exercise 2.77
public Student(String fullName, String studentID)
{
if(fullName.length() < 4) {
System.out.println("Error! The name should be at least 4
characters long");
}
if(studentID.length() < 3) {
System.out.println("Error! The studentID should be at
least 3 characters long");
}
name = fullName;
id = studentID;
credits = 0;
}

Exercise 2.78
public String getLoginName()
{
String loginNamePart;
if(name.length() < 4) {
loginNamePart = name;
}
else {
loginNamePart = name.substring(0,4);
}

String loginIdPart;
if(id.length() < 3) {
loginIdPart = id;
}
else {
loginIdPart = id.substring(0,3);
}

return loginNamePart + loginIdPart ;

}

Exercise 2.79
102
"catfish"
"cat9"
"12cat"
"cat39"
"f"
StringIndexOutOfBoundsException

Exercise 2.80
The first call returns 0 and the second returns 500.

Exercise 2.81
Because t2 refers to the same object as t1, the call will print 500.

This example of aliasing is an important one and students should try to ensure that
they understand what is going on here.

Exercise 2.82
The call returns 1000. Even though the change was made via t1, because t2 is
referring to the same object, it sees the new value. Note that we have only created
a single TicketMachine object in these two exercises, but two variables refer to
that one object.

Exercise 2.83
/**
* Returns the author of this book.
*/
public String getAuthor()
{
return author;
}

/**
* Returns the title of this book.
*/
public String getTitle()
{
return title;
}

Exercise 2.84
/**
* Prints the name of the author in the terminal window.
*/
public void printAuthor()
{
System.out.println("Author: " + author);
}

/**
* Prints the title of the book in the terminal window.
*/
public void printTitle()
{
System.out.println("Title: " + title);
}

Exercise 2.85

Delete the constructor and insert this:

private int pages;

/**
* Set the author and title fields when this object
* is constructed.
*/
public Book(String bookAuthor, String bookTitle, int bookPages)
{
 author = bookAuthor;
title = bookTitle;
pages = bookPages;
}

/**
* Returns the number of pages in this book.
*/
public int getPages()
{
return pages;
}

Exercise 2.86
The objects are immutable because the class contains no methods to change the
values of any of the fields once an instance has been created.

Exercise 2.87
public void printDetails()
{
System.out.print ("Title: " + title + ", ");
System.out.print("Author: " + author + ", ");
System.out.println("Pages: " + pages);
}

Exercise 2.88

Delete the constructor and insert:

private String refNumber;

/**
* Set the author and title fields when this object
* is constructed.
*/
public Book(String bookAuthor, String bookTitle, int bookPages)
{
author = bookAuthor;
title = bookTitle;
pages = bookPages;
refNumber = "";
}

/**
* Sets the reference number for this book
*/
public void setRefNumber(String ref)
{
refNumber = ref;
}

/**
* Gets the reference number for this book
*/
public String getRefNumber()
{
return refNumber;
}
Exercise 2.89
public void printDetails()
{
System.out.println("Title: " + title);
System.out.println("Author: " + author);
System.out.println("Pages: " + pages);

String refNumberString;
if(refNumber.length() > 0 ) {
refNumberString = refNumber;
}
else {
refNumberString = "ZZZ";
}
System.out.println("Reference number: " + refNumberString);
}

Exercise 2.90
public void setRefNumber(String ref)
{
if(ref.length() >= 3) {
refNumber = ref;
}
else {
System.out.println("Error! The reference number must be at
least 3 characters long.");
}
}

Exercise 2.91

Add the field:

private int borrowed;

Add the methods:

/**
* Borrows the book. Increments the number of times the book has
been borrowed.
*/
public void borrow()
{
borrowed++;
}

/**
* Gets the number of times the book has been borrowed.
*/
public int getBorrowed()
{
return borrowed;
}

Add this line to printDetails method:

System.out.println("Borrowed: " + borrowed);
Exercise 2.92

private boolean courseText;

public boolean isCourseText()

{
return courseText;
}

Exercise 2.93

public class Heater

{
private double temperature;

/**
* Creates a new Heater with an initial temperature of 15.
*/
public Heater()
{
temperature = 15.0;
}

/**
* Increases the temperature by 5 degrees
*/
public void warmer()
{
temperature += 5.0;
}

/**
* Decreases the temperature by 5 degrees
*/
public void cooler()
{
temperature -= 5.0;
}

/**
* Gets the current temperature of the heater
*/
public double getTemperature()
{
return temperature;
}
}

Exercise 2.94

public class Heater

{
private double temperature;
private double min;
private double max;
private double increment;

/**
* Creates a new Heater with an initial temperature of 15.
Discovering Diverse Content Through
Random Scribd Documents
exceedingly, but of his towering frame the vertical was the customary attitude,
and if the one of us who was sharing his sledge left off pulling for a moment
the sledge mysteriously stuck fast. There were, indeed, signs of a return of
Svensen’s malady; but it was explained to him that, regard being had to the
comfortable warmth of the weather and absence of wind, his health was not
to be deranged, and that, if it should happen that he could not go on with us,
doing his full share of work, he would have to find his way back to the coast
alone. Thenceforward he throve exceedingly, and only penalised us by
“sugaring” when not closely watched.
The character of the scenery changed considerably during the progress of
the march. Our first camp looked up both the Crowns and Highway glaciers
and was opposite the big nunatak which divides them. It is a true nunatak, or
hilltop rising from the bed of the glacier, not an entire mountain surrounded
by different glaciers. At one time it must have been buried under ice, for all its
top seems to be moutonnised. The Crowns and Queens groups were both well
seen from the same camp, or would have been but for a few clouds. As we
advanced, the Crowns disappeared behind the Pretender and Queens, and we
came under the rounded and bare south slopes of these—a dull prospect. But
new objects of interest were appearing in the other direction, where the
Highway Glacier widened out and branched off into white bays and tributaries,
separated from one another by peaks of striking and precipitous form, finely
grouped. When the Three Crowns were finally hidden, there opened out on
the left side of the Highway a broad valley, south-westward, that bent round
to the west and soon reached a wide snow pass, beyond which, still curving
round, it led down to the glacier emptying into the head of English Bay.
All day long we were rounding away from the purple fjord and visibly
leaving it behind, though the distance to the watershed in front did not
perceptibly diminish. The weather continued fine, though not clear; the sun
peeped through the mottled sky from time to time, but fogs rolled about like
big snowballs on the higher névés. Camp was pitched (1180 feet) in the midst
of the widest part of the glacier about a mile below the point where it
bifurcates, each branch leading up to a wide snow pass of its own. The north
branch continues the direction of the lower part of the glacier, so we decided
to go to it. A widening wedge of peaks divides the cols, and coming down to a
sharp arête buries itself beneath the ice at Junction Point (named because it
must be referred to again in the course of this narrative).
The 29th was a glorious day. Resolutions were made that we would march
on to the watershed, whatever its distance. It is as easy to change these
resolves in the afternoon as to make them in the morning. The pools of water
were now left behind, but the snow on the surface of the ice was still sodden
and slushy. In the first three-quarters of an hour we rose 120 feet, and
reached the end of the ridge at Junction Point. Rocks were here disclosed, so
Garwood went off geologising. The rest of us plunged into an island of fog,
and hauled on up a steep slope, where the snow became good, and
thenceforward remained in perfect condition for ski at that and all higher
levels. Without ski it would have been impossible to do much, for we should
have sunk up to, or above, the knee in snow, over which, with them, we slid
in luxury. Above this slope the fog ended, and a wide, very gently sloping
plain of snow followed, stretching afar on all sides. This is the highest basin
and gathering ground of the glacier. It is almost level with the passes that
divide the mountains on the north. If we had but known that the same is true
of the névé on the other side of those passes, we might have saved ourselves
the long round of a few days later. Now that there was no water to trouble us,
we suffered acutely from thirst, for the day was quite hot and the sun burned
fiercely. We peeled off our garments one by one and rejoiced in an unwonted
freedom.
The mountains bordering the King’s Highway average somewhat over 3000
feet in height. As the level of the glacier rises, the lower slopes are more
deeply covered and the visible remainder of the peaks comes to be not much
above 1000 feet. They appear, moreover, to stand wider apart from one
another, and the glacier, filling the valley more deeply, becomes itself
considerably wider. Nevertheless, such is the fine form of the mountains that
they still appear large, especially to an eye trained in greater ranges. Being
themselves magnified, they proportionally magnify the aspect of the glacial
expanse, which pretends to be of quite enormous extent—a spotless desert of
purest white. The views on all sides were of entrancing beauty, especially the
view back down the blue vista of Kings Bay. The broad white col ahead
seemed for hours little elevated above us. There were far, coy, tantalising
peaks over and beyond. From the col itself rose a small mound, perhaps 500
feet high, by the foot of which it was our intention to camp, but hour passed
after hour, and it never seemed nearer.
Busied with the survey, perforce I lagged behind and was alone in the midst
of a world of whiteness. A lengthening shadow was my sole moving
companion, save when some stray fulmar petrel came whizzing by, en route
from Kings Bay to Ice Fjord. The tracks of foxes were crossed not
infrequently, but no fox did I actually see. At 9 p.m. the col was apparently as
far off as ever, and Nielsen had done as much work as a man could be
expected to do in a day. Svensen didn’t count, as he always put on the aspect
of a moribund person. He expressed a full agreement with Nielsen’s
ejaculation, “We’ll have to have plenty of soup for this.” Ultimately we gave up
till the morrow the resolved pursuit of the pass and camped at a height of
2170 feet, having risen about 1000 feet during the day. The first thing done
was to melt snow for a debauch. Deep were our potions; the insipid draught
tasted for once like divine nectar. The sun continued his bright shining and the
tents were warm within. We lay on our bags, enjoying the simple beauty of
the view seen through the open door. Each deep-trodden footprint in front
was a cup filled with a shadow of purest blue, pale like the sky. A white
expanse followed, slightly mottled with blue in the foreground and sparkling
as with diamonds; it stretched away for about five miles to the great blue
shadow, which the wall of rocks and ridge of snow in the north cast wide from
the low-hanging sun. There was not a sound, not a breath of moving air; no
bird came by; not an insect hummed. It was an hour of absolute stillness and
perfect repose.
We tried to sleep, but in the bright sunshine no ghost of slumber would
consent to visit the camp, till clouds at last came up which barred snow and
sky across in grey and silver, robbing the shadows of their blue, and lowering
the temperature to a comfortable degree. Then sleep descended, and coming
late lingered with us all too long, so that it was noon of the 30th before we
were again on the way. The snow was now soft and the apparent level
proved, by the evidence of the sledges, to be a steady uphill slope. For an
hour the pass kept its distance; then, on a sudden, it was near. Excitement
rose. What should we see? What was beyond? We knew that the slope on the
other side must be toward Ice Fjord, but that was all. The east coast of what I
have named King James Land[7] is well seen from Advent Bay and other parts
of Ice Fjord. It consists of the fronts of a series of big glaciers and of the ends
of the mountain ranges dividing them. The glaciers and ranges are
approximately parallel to one another, running from north-west to south-east.
We therefore thought it probable that we should look down some glacier from
the col, but doubted which. Arrived on the pass (2500 feet), there, in fact,
was a glacier directly continuing the King’s Highway down to the eastern
waters, for it apparently ended in the fjord. Far off, and still in the same line,
was the purple recess of Advent Bay. A beautiful row of peaks, pleasantly
varied in form (for there were needles and snowy domes and pyramids among
them), lined the glacier on either side, the last on both hands being bolder
and more massive towers of rock than the rest. We afterward easily identified
these peaks from Advent Bay, whence also on a clear morning I confirmed our
observations by looking straight up this same glacier and recognising Highway
Pass.
 Camp was pitched on the pass and preparations made for a day’s exploring
in the neighbourhood. It was warm, the temperature in the tents being 59°
Fahr., whilst the direct rays of sunshine really scorched. The condition of the
snow may be imagined. Without ski, progress in any direction would have
involved intolerable discomfort and labour. Close at hand on the north was a
hill about 500 feet high, to which we gave the name Highway Dome. It was
the obvious point to be ascended for a panoramic view. There was a
bergschrund at the foot of it, and then a long snow slope up which we had to
zigzag. Unfortunately by the time the summit had been gained the sun was
obscured by clouds, which were boiling in the north as though for a
thunderstorm. The hills of known position near Advent Bay were likewise
obscured by cloud, so that my three-legged theodolite had made this ascent
to little purpose, but the panorama was clear in the main and the colouring all
the richer for the cloud-roof.
We were standing at an altitude of about 3000 feet,[8] surrounded by peaks
of similar, or rather greater, elevation. Let no one fancy that because these
heights are insignificant there was any corresponding insignificance in the
view. The effect produced by mountains depends not upon their altitude, but
upon their form, colour, and grouping. There are no features in a mountain,
standing wholly above the snowline, whereby its absolute magnitude can be
estimated by mere inspection. You may judge of its relative magnitude
compared with its neighbours, but of its absolute magnitude you can only
judge when you have acquired experience of the district. A native of the
Himalayas coming to the Alps would see them double their true size. A Swiss
would halve the Himalayas. A slope of stone débris is the best guide to eye
measurement, because stones break up into small fragments everywhere; but
in these high arctic regions, far within the glaciers, there are no such slopes.
It is only the multitude of mountains seen in any extended panorama of
Spitsbergen that suggests the smallness of the individual peaks; but this very
multitude is itself impressive. To the south, for instance, we looked across at
least five parallel ridges; and there were indications of others beyond, a very
tumult and throng of hills, none of which could we identify. The opposite
direction interested us more at the moment, for our idea was that we might
find there a route round to the Three Crowns. There was, in fact, a large névé
basin, but so intricately crevassed as to be practically impassable in fog. One
way was discoverable through the labyrinth, and apparently one only. The
weather looked so threatening that we incontinently decided against making
the attempt. This névé was one of several that fed the next big glacier to the
north, which empties into the sea at Ekman Bay. Beyond it came a chaos of
peaks; we learned to know them by sight well enough a few days later. The
waters of Ekman Bay were in view, and the depression containing Dickson
Bay could be traced, then the wall-fronted mass of the Thordsen Peninsula,
and, far off, the high snow plateau, where we had wandered in the fog a few
days before. Looking back the way we had come, we saw Kings Bay
apparently very far off, much farther than Ice Fjord, which seemed,
comparatively speaking, to lie at our feet. Differences of atmospheric
transparency had some share in producing this effect.
A cold wind diminished our pleasure on the summit and shortened our stay.
The descent presented problems to inexperienced skisters. The snow-slope
dropped vertically from the summit crest for a yard or so, and was then very
steep. Svensen, an expert on ski, tried to shoot down, but came a cropper
before reaching the gentler incline. We, of course, fell headlong in hopeless
fashion, and all attempts at glissading failed. Where the slope began to ease
off a little a start was finally made, and a long curving shoot of about a mile
carried us with exhilarating swiftness down to camp. Later on in the day the
ascent was repeated, but with no useful result, for clouds still masked the
important points of reference in the panorama. Excursions were also made in
other directions, and a plan decided on for the morrow. Clouds kept forming,
but only to fade again; by evening the weather was satisfactorily re-
established. The play of shadow on the wide glacial expanse was inexpressibly
lovely. Under full sunshine any very large névé appears a mere uniform sheet
of white, admirable for brilliancy but lacking in detail. When shadows come,
the undulation of the surface is disclosed by long curves—infinitely delicate
and fine in form. Of course, however bright the sun, there must really be a
difference in the intensity of the light reflected at different points owing to
variations of slope, but this difference is slight, and the eye, astonished by the
brilliancy of sunshine upon snow, is not conscious of it. But when a cloud
comes over the sun and casts a broad shadow on the névé, the varying
illumination of the bending field becomes readily perceptible, though still faint
and of marvellous delicacy, and a new order of beauty is revealed. He would
be but a starved lover of mountain beauty whose eyes should desire to behold
the regions of snow always beneath a cloudless heaven.
 CHAPTER VI
OSBORNE GLACIER AND PRETENDER PASS

Explorers in most parts of the world are able to sketch general maps of
large areas, which they may have traversed only along a single line of route.
Undulating country intersected by prominent waterways and rising at
considerable intervals to prominent altitudes can be mapped in a sketchy
fashion by the rapidest traveller, if skilled. A few compass bearings fix the
position of prominent points; positions, astronomically determined from time
to time as opportunity arises, clamp the whole together and enable it to be
adjusted on the proper part of the globe; whilst, as for details, who cares
about them in a new country? The mountain explorer, however, that person
most unpopular with geographers, is faced by topographical problems of a far
more complicated character. His routes always lie along valleys, whose sides
cut off the distant view and whose bends often prevent him from looking
either ahead or back. When he climbs a peak, assuming him to have a clear
view, which is rare, he beholds a wide panorama, it is true, but, save in the
foreground, it consists of a throng of peaks, whose summits alone are visible
over intervening ridges. If, following tradition, he laboriously fixes the position
of some of them, it is lost labour, for the mere dotting upon a map of the
points of a lot of peaks tells a geographer nothing. What he wants to know is
the number and direction of ranges, the position of watersheds, the relation
of rivers to the original earth-crinkles which determined their direction and in
turn are so remarkably modified by them. To make merely a sketch-map of a
considerable mountain area thus involves an amount of travel within it beyond
all comparison greater than that entailed by the exploration of open country.
The smaller the scale of the mountains, and the closer they are packed
together, the more frequently must the area be traversed in different
directions before a sketch-map of it can be made.
King James Land is an example of a region excessively difficult to map. It is
covered by a wonderful multitude of mountains, which may be described in a
general way as planted in ranges running from north-west to south-east. Of
these there are about six principal ones between the King’s Highway and the
Dead Man, and quantities more to the north. The old-fashioned geographer
would have been content to draw parallel caterpillars on his map and so fill it
up. But, as a matter of fact, there are throngs of subsidiary ranges and
crossing hollows, so that the glacier, flowing down one valley, robs from its
neighbour the snow accumulated in its upper reservoir; and it is exactly in
these phenomena that the geographical interest of the region consists, for
they show how ice-denudation works, and the kind of modelling effect which
ice can produce on a land surface, an effect totally different in kind from that
fabled by home-staying geologists, with their imagined excavating ice-
streams.
Thus far we had only made acquaintance with one glacier-valley cutting
across the island from Kings Bay to Ice Fjord. We determined to look into
another, to the south, before turning northward to the Crowns group. On July
31 we accordingly broke up camp, loaded the sledges, and bade the men set
off, down the way we had come, as far as Junction Point, where they were to
await our arrival. Garwood and I, in the meantime, were to cross the range of
hills at the south of our camp, descend into the next valley, and return over
the pass at its head, which must of course give access to the snowfield of the
southern branch of Highway Glacier. Descending that we should come to
Junction Point.
It was another brilliant day, and so warm that the snow was softened to an
unusual depth. During or immediately after frost the surface of névé sparkles
in sunlight as though sprinkled with countless diamonds; but on warm days
there are no diamonds, but only drops of water, the surface crystals being
melted. The forms and surfaces of snow are thereby softened, and this
softening effect is recognisable even from great distances. At starting, the
view over Ice Fjord was clearer than ever, and we could distinguish Bunting
Bluff, Fox Peak, and other scenes of last year’s toils and delights. The work
immediately in hand was to ascend a long snow-slope, rising from Highway
Pass to a col about 200 feet higher in the range to the south—a broad snow-
saddle at the foot of a very fine peak, the ascent of which from this side
would be dangerous, for its whole face is swept by ice-avalanches.
Somewhere in the rocks of this peak are the nesting-places of many birds, the
chorus of whose voices was heard as a faint hum. The new pass looked down
upon the head of a large glacier, and across it to an innumerable multitude of
peaks, all shining in the blaze of midday. At our feet was a secluded bay of
this glacier. A splendid ski-glissade landed us on its snowy floor, and we were
soon out on the main glacier, which swept down from the pass we were to
cross next. Halting at a convenient spot, we took stock of the view. It was
beautiful, of course—every view is beautiful in King James Land; but its
interest made me forget its beauty for a time. We expected to find in this
trough a glacier parallel to the Highway, and we did find one, and a large one
too, larger than the Highway, because fed by several tributaries from the
south; but to our surprise this glacier did not flow in the expected direction,
but due south for many miles, and instead of ending in Ice Fjord, or on its
shore, ran up against a big mass of mountains and, bending round to the
right or south-west, disappeared from view. At the angle it received a wide
tributary from the north-east. This great glacier, in fact, empties itself into the
head of St. John’s Bay. As that bay was originally named Osborne’s Inlet, after
an early whaling skipper, we gave his name to this glacier. Garwood, I believe,
explains the twist of the mountains which cause this deflection of the glacier
as the result of a fault dying out; but, lest I should unwillingly misrepresent
his conclusions, I leave him to describe them himself. The mountains near at
hand to the south were of beautiful forms, reminding us of well-known Swiss
peaks, Weisshorns, Gabelhorns, and so forth. There was much aqueous
vapour in the air, reducing its transparency and adding to the effects of
distance. The mottled sky cast a decorative patchwork of shadows on the
snow. Skeins of cloud were forming, and in the north the weather was again
threatening dark and evil things.
On us, however, toiling up the long, long slopes to the pass, coy as are all
the wide white passes in this land, the sun shone with painful fierceness. It
burned as it sometimes does on the high Alps, so that we soon began to
suffer from sun-headaches and parching thirst. Nowhere was there a drop of
water to be squeezed from the apparently sodden snow. Having survey
instruments and cameras to carry, we were sparely provided with food.
Hunger came to weaken us and double the apparent length of the way. At last
we were on the col, but the downward slope was very gentle and the snow
now became sticky, so that the ski would not slide. We bore away to the right
in search of a steeper incline and struck blue ice covered with mere slush that
even the ski sank into. There were dry patches of it, too slippery to stand on;
it was a mere alternation of evils. Sometimes we stuck fast and sometimes fell
heavily. What was looked forward to as an easy and delightful excursion
became a most laborious day’s work. “This is your picnic,” cried Garwood to
me as he fell more than usually hard, “I hope you like it.” But all things come
to an end, and so did this march. Junction Point appeared in sight, with a
lake-basin between the branch glaciers where they join, a basin similar to that
at the foot of the Terrier, and, like it, recently drained. The heavy ice, formed
on its surface in the winter, had been carried all over the neighbourhood by
the momentum of the escaping water, and now lay spread about, high and
dry. With a struggle and a scramble we passed round the head of the lake and
came in view of the men resting on the sledges. The unbelieving Svensen had
climbed a neighbouring eminence to look out. Nielsen informed us that
Svensen had been full of forebodings all day. They would never see us again,
he said. We were gone into the wilderness and would be engulfed; as for
them, when the provisions were finished they in their turn would die of
starvation. Fool that he was not to take his old woman’s advice and stay at
home where he was well off, instead of coming to this snow-buried circle of
the infernal regions! Camp was pitched on the very tracks of our upward
journey. Then the sky clouded over and the wind rose. After one last look
towards Kings Bay, reflecting the golden west and framed by purple hills, we
closed the tent-doors and rejoiced to be “at home.”
The lovely weather re-established itself in the daylit night, so that, when we
awoke, sunshine lay abroad upon the glacier. Looking downward we had on
our right hand the dull slope of the Queens group, where a smooth side
glacier comes slanting down the midst of it from a col whose existence had
not been revealed till now. It was decided to climb to this col for the purpose
of making a closer investigation of the structure of the group. The march
accordingly began with a long traversing descent of the main glacier to a
point on its right bank at the foot of the side glacier. It mischanced that the
area to be traversed was exactly the wettest belt of the whole basin. We
skirted it on the ascent; now we had to go right across it, and that too after a
series of fine melting days. The watery surface shone like a lake, and did in
fact consist of a succession of pools, communicating with one another by
slushy belts through which streams sluggishly meandered. The reader must
not conceive of the pools, streams, and snow as corresponding to water and
land, for the snow, even where it emerged, was permeated with water like a
saturated sponge. When the autumnal frost masters a snow-bog and binds its
errant molecules into a mass, there is formed a solid, built up of ice-prisms,
each about one inch in diameter and as long as the bog was deep. Prismatic
ice of this kind, the product of the preceding winter, is frequently met with on
Spitsbergen glaciers. Its cause puzzled us greatly when first we came upon it.
With the motion of the glacier, the formation of crevasses, and so forth, it
often happens that the side pressure which held the prisms together is
removed. Their tendency is to thaw and separate along their planes of
junction. By this means are produced opening sheaves of long ice-crystals,
most beautiful to look upon. I have found them in quantities a foot or more
long, opening out “like quills upon a fretful porcupine.” Where there is no
relaxation of lateral pressure, the crystals are held together; but they form a
fabric of weak cohesion, and when you tread upon it your foot crunches in,
almost as far as into snow.
 Across this uncomfortable region we travelled for hours. Sometimes there
were deep channels to cross; rarely a dry, hard patch intervened; most of the
time there was slush of different consistencies which we had to push through.
The sledges seemed to grow heavier and more resistant every hour. One of
them, of which the runners were not shod with metal, came to grief at a
stream-gully, where it pitched on its nose and smashed a runner. At last the
water was left behind and dry ice gained. At the foot of a long, downward
slope we found a big, frozen lake that had not yet burst the bonds imposed
on it by the previous winter; crossing its rough surface, we climbed on to the
moraine beyond, at the foot of the side glacier now to be ascended. The
stone débris of dolomite rock, covering the lower part of the slope, were
dotted about with various common plants, Dryas octapetala, Saxifraga
oppositifolia, arctic poppy, and so forth, the same that grow in the interior
wherever there is any soil to accommodate them. Of the ascent little need be
said. We shall not soon forget it. The slope was the steepest encountered by
the sledges. Our forces just sufficed to raise them, but there was nothing to
spare. We arrived at the level top exhausted. Camp was pitched on the col, a
wide snow-saddle between the Queen (4060 ft.) and an unimportant but
commanding buttress peak. To the latter I hurried, desirous of making
observations while the view was clear, for sea-mists had been observed
crawling up both from Kings and English bays, and uniting on the pass near
Mount Nielsen. There is nothing more beautiful than a sea-fog beheld from
above when the sun shines upon it. By contrast its brilliant metallic whiteness
makes purest snow grey. Then it moves so beautifully, gliding inland and
putting out arms before it or casting off islands that wander away at their own
sweet will. Enchanting to look upon are these sea-fairies, save to the victim to
their embraces. Once inveigled, all their beauty vanishes, for within they are
cold, cheerless, and grey, like the depths whence they spring. But to-day they
were not destined to advance far. They came up boldly a while, then faltered
and turned back, remaining thenceforward among the seracs and crevasses,
except a few rambling outliers that floated away over the glacier or hovered
as bright islands in hollows of the surface. Faint beds of variously transparent
vapour, horizontally stratified, barred across the fine range of craggy
mountains and their glacier cascades that filled the space between Cross Bay
and the Crowns Glacier, a mountain group with an exceptionally fine skyline.
We were encamped at that level of the glacier which may be described as the
singing level, where water trickles all about, tinkling in tiny ice-cracks, rippling
in rivulets, roaring in moulins, and humming in the faint base of the remoter
torrents. It is only on slopes of a reasonable inclination that these sounds
arise. The flat snowbogs of our morning traverse were soundless.
 Late in the evening, the weather being perfectly re-established, I returned
alone to camp. It was an enchanted hour. On one hand, as I sat in the tent-
door, facing the sunshine and the view, was the fine peak we named
Pretender, rising above the battlement-ridge of the western Queen. On the
other hand was a lower hill, shutting off the distance and turning toward me a
splendid precipice of rock. Between them was the opening through which the
glacier, falling away from my standpoint, joined the apparently boundless
expanse of the Crowns Glacier. Beyond were beautiful hills with the silver mist
kissing their feet, and, above them in the clear sky, a few wisps of cloud. No
breath of air moved, but falling waters sang from near and far, and a fulmar’s
whirr occasionally broke the stillness. At such times Nature gathers a man into
herself, transforming his self-consciousness into a consciousness of her. All the
forms and colours of the landscape sink into his heart like the expression of a
great personality, whereof he himself is a portion. Ceasing to think, while
Nature addresses him through every sense, he receives direct impressions
from her. In this kind of nirvana the passage of time is forgotten, and as near
an approach to bliss is experienced as this world is capable of supplying.
The passing hours, whereof some were devoted to sleep, witnessed the
establishment of the weather’s perfection. Heights and depths were
cloudlessly clear, save low down over the bay, where the bright mist stretched
like a carpet far out to sea. Buckling on my snowshoes, I slid forth down the
slope, which curved over so steeply at the top that its foot was hidden by the
bulge. The exhilaration of that rush through the crisp air is yet quick in
remembrance. The cliffs on either hand, glorious battlemented walls of
dolomite, seemed to be growing as we descended the side-glacier, whose exit,
when we came to it, proved to be closed across by a rampart of moraine.
Over this moraine, at a later hour, the sledges had to be carried to the ice of
the extreme left margin of the Crowns Glacier, up which we were now to
advance. There was no threat of serious impediment for a mile or so, but
unexpected obstacles always lie in wait—the seasoning salt of the delight of
exploration. A hundred yards on we were brought up sharply by a deep,
impassable ice-gully or water-channel, stretching away into the glacier on the
left and coming out of the moraine. We turned along its bank and came into
the angle where an equally impassable tributary channel branched into it.
There was nothing to be done but follow this backward to an overhanging
place, cross it there, and then carry the sledges in turn, about a quarter of a
mile over moraine, to a point where the other channel fortunately proved
traversable. Hummocky ice succeeded for the rest of the march, beneath the
grand cliffs of the Pretender (3480 ft.). Two great corries cut into these cliffs,
the second of them starting exactly beneath the summit of the peak. We
camped at a safe distance below its narrow mouth, beyond the range of
frequent volleys of falling stones.
From this point to the base camp would be one long day’s march for men
with sledges. We had three and a half days’ provisions left. We could
therefore only spare two and a half days for exploration of the
neighbourhood. That was not enough, so we sent the two men away with
empty sacks to fetch more stores. There was plenty of work to be done in the
neighbourhood, for the Pretender’s cliff disclosed all the mysteries of the great
fault, which, cutting right across the country, approximately along the line of
the King’s Highway, divides the uncontorted, almost horizontally stratified
plateau-region of the north from the series of ranges of splintered peaks
extending southward to the Dead Man. Accurate observation and careful
mapping were, therefore, essential.
After lunch, when the men were gone away, we sat on a sledge in the
sunshine, with our coats off, rejoicing in life. The glacier was working and
cracking about us unceasingly; stones kept toppling from the moraine close
by. High aloft rose the Pretender’s cliff, 2000 feet, almost sheer. It is the most
beautifully coloured cliff I ever saw. For foundations it has a contorted mass
of ruddy archæan rocks, brilliantly adorned with splashes of golden lichen,
picked out with grass-grown ledges. Here, as all along the mountain’s face,
are the nesting-places of countless birds. The fulmar petrels choose the lower
edges; some, as we found, only just beyond reach of a man’s hand. The wall
below them is generally overhanging, for the birds know exactly the limits of a
fox’s climbing powers, and they avoid places accessible to him. Higher up are
the homes of the little auks, who sit close together in rows, sunning their
white bosoms. On the top of every jutting pinnacle of rock a glaucous gull
keeps watch, with his own nest near at hand, ready to dive into any
unprotected nest, or to pounce on any unfortunate bird that falls a victim to
disease. The little auks always fly together in companies, I suppose for mutual
protection. There is continual warfare between them and the gulls, but it
seems to be carried on in accordance with some accepted law, for though any
stray auklet or fallen fledgling is fair game for a gull, he does not seem to
attack individual auks sitting near their nests. Indeed, we often saw auks and
glaucous gulls sitting close together on the same ledge, when it would have
been easy for the gull to have snapped up one of his small neighbours. This,
however, must be illegal. We never saw such a crime committed, and the auks
evidently felt confident of the gull’s correct behaviour. The nests are not
placed in the gullies where stones habitually fall. No matter how big stone-
avalanches may come down the usual ruts, the birds watch them
unconcerned. But when a stray stone fell down the cliff in an exceptional
direction, the birds flew out in their hundreds and thousands, filling the air
with protests, the fulmars swooping around, the little auks darting forth
horizontally at a higher level straight out and back again, whilst the glaucous
gulls more leisurely floated away on confident wing, their white plumage
seeming scarcely more solid than the glowing air which sustained their poise.
Above the ancient foundation rocks of the mountain comes a bed of green
sandstone, above this a dark red bed, the same which forms the substance of
all the Crowns group, except their caps. On the top of the sandstone, whose
face has a sloping profile, is planted the summit cap of pink dolomite, cut off
on this side in a plumb-vertical cliff horizontally stratified. High aloft in the
wonderful air this rose-pink cliff, with its level lines of orange and other tones,
like courses of masonry, was an object of rarest beauty, as all who know the
Dolomites of Tirol can realise; but the sharp clear atmosphere of the Alps
must yield the palm to the soft mellow arctic air, in which Spitsbergen’s
mountains almost seem to float. Rose-pink aloft, then purple-red, then green,
and finally red again splashed with orange and green: such was the chord of
colour presented by this lovely mountain-face between the blue sky and the
white glacier foreground.
A funnel-shaped gully, with its upper edge at the foot of the dolomite cliff
and the foot of its couloir ending on the glacier, was exactly behind our camp.
Snow-slopes at its head were melting fast in the sun, so that a cascade
laughed aloud all down the height of it. Stones were continually loosened by
the melting; each started others in its fall, so that the rattle of tumbling rocks,
now and again swollen by the roar of some big stone avalanche, kept the air
in ceaseless vibration.
I made two expeditions out upon the glacier in different directions for the
purpose of investigating its character at its most energetic part, just below the
summer snowline. It was a maze of crevasses throughout its entire breadth
and all the way down from the edge of the névé to the sea. A few traversable
lines of route could be found, either parallel to and between the crevasses, or
across them, where, owing to a change of slope in the bed, the lips of the
crevasses were brought together within striding range. At best the surface
was very bumpy, and I foresaw a bad time coming for the sledges. The ice
phenomena would have struck any Alpine climber as curious. Every year there
are added, even to the central and crevassed portion of an arctic glacier,
accumulations of ice formed by the thawing and re-freezing of the winter
snow, and these patchwork additions take the most unexpected forms. For
instance, a crevasse that happens to be full of water will be roofed over with
ice a few feet thick. If the rest of the water is then drained off a tunnel is
formed, across which again crevasses may open. We found two or three such
tunnels, whose roofs had been squeezed up into barrel-vaults. One of them
was still full of water, but the roof had been raised high above it by pressure,
and a doorway had been formed by the fall of a portion of the arch. I climbed
into this grotto and stood on a ledge. Sunlight glimmered through the crystal
roof; the walls were white; for floor there were the indigo-blue depths of the
water. This was but one of the strange and beautiful objects that the glacier
offered to the wanderer’s admiration. Near the foot of the Pretender a blood-
red river, dyed with the dust of the falling sandstones, flowed in a deep white
channel cut into the glacier. It soon came to the crevasse that was its fate and
plunged down the fatal moulin. That was close to camp. Of course, we called
it the Moulin Rouge!
After wandering far I returned home for the night, meeting Garwood on the
way. Our backs were to the boundless snowfields; before us the Pretender’s
mighty cliff shone warm under the mellow midnight sun, pink high aloft,
crimson and green at lower levels, and striped blood-red where the water was
pouring down. The white-mounded glacier was mottled over with blue
shadows. Perfect weather, perfect scenery, perfect health—what more could
we desire?
 CHAPTER VII
THE SPITSBERGEN DOLOMITES

When the sun passed round behind the Pretender, casting his shadow out
upon the glacier far beyond camp, a hard frost set in, sealing up the runlets of
water and binding the loosened rocks on the face of the cliff, so that stonefalls
became rare; but no sooner did the fiery monarch come out from his retreat
behind the mountains in the east than all the batteries of the hills opened to
salute him. The afternoon of August 3, being our morning, Garwood and I
shouldered packs for a scramble on the Pretender, minded to pass northward
round his foot and then make way up the ridge that forms, higher up, the lip
of the funnel of the falling stones. The weather was glorious, but the white
sea-fog had crept up to the tents, so that we set forth from the very edge of
the mist. After going some little way up the main glacier we bore to the right
on to the hillside, and went diagonally up a slope of snow. Below on the left
was a bergschrund, and above on the right were the steep rocks. Presently
the slope increased and became of hard ice, into which Garwood cut steps.
The position was not altogether a safe one, for we had not bothered to bring
a rope, and now discovered that quantities of stones were in the habit of
falling down the slope into the bergschrund, which was ready to engulf either
of us impartially in the event of a slip. However, we did not slip, and the sun
had not yet reached the stones, which were still in the bondage of frost. The
rocks above the slope were safely reached and a brief scramble carried us
over the edge of the ridge on to the screes of the north-east face. Beyond
them was a wide snow-slope reaching up to the steep dolomite cap that forms
the top 500 feet of the peak. The snow was hard frozen, so the ascent had to
be made up the screes. They were particularly loose, and that is all to say
about them. Scree-slopes are never anything but nasty to climb. The top of
them was the edge of the nearly level ridge, whence we looked down into the
funnel on the other side and across to the beautiful dolomite cliff visible from
camp. At the foot of the couloir of the funnel we could just discover our tiny
tents.
The point thus gained was all that could be desired for surveying and
geologising. Now was displayed in all its wide extent the névé region of the
Crowns Glacier, utterly different in character from that of the King’s Highway.
Here was no ice-filled trough between two serrated walls, but a huge
expanse, so gently sloping as to appear flat—a marble pavement, of three
hundred square miles, beneath the blue dome of heaven. Far away it swelled
into low white domes, on whose sides a few rocks appeared, whilst in the
north-east was its undulating upper edge, beyond which were remoter snow-
covered plateaus with mountain summits peering over from yet farther off.
The white névé was lined by the many-branching water-channels of its
drainage system, like the veins in a leaf, indicating the structure and trend of
the ice. Where areas were crevassed, blue shadows toned the white.
Everywhere the delicate modelling of the surface, by slightly varying the
amount of light reflected to the eye, produced a tender play of tones, within
the narrowest conceivable limits from brightest to darkest. The whole was
visibly a flowing stream, not a stagnant accumulation, for the curves of flow
were everywhere discernible. Thus a sense of weight and volume was added
to the effect of boundless expanse which first overwhelmed the observers.
The noble flood of ice, narrowing considerably between the hill on which we
stood, and the beautifully composed group of sharp-crested rock-peaks
opposite, disappeared beneath the floor of sea-mist whereon the sunshine lay
dazzling.
Turning round toward the east from this enthralling prospect, the eye rested
on the group of the famous Crowns. They are called the Three Crowns on all
the maps, but there are many more than three. The prominent trio are
pyramidal hills of purple sandstone, shaped with almost artful regularity, each
surmounted by a cap of the same dolomite limestone as that which crowns
the Pretender. They resemble golden crowns above purple robes. The caps
are the fragmentary remains of an ancient plateau, denuded away in the
lapse of time. Just behind the Three Crowns we saw a low broad pass, giving
access to the head of a glacier flowing eastward. There was sea-fog lying on
it also, so we knew that Ekman Bay could not be very far off in that direction.
This is the lowest and shortest pass between Kings Bay and Ice Fjord. Lightly
laden men could cross this way in a long day’s march from sea to sea,
climbing one of the Crowns en route. The expedition would take them
through what is, to my thinking, the finest scenery in Spitsbergen. The whole
panorama was clear to the remotest edge of the horizon, flooded with
undimmed sunshine, and overarched by a sky faintly blue below, deeply azure
in the fathomless zenith.
 THE THREE CROWNS FROM KINGS BAY.

We spent some hours at this point, lunching, admiring, and taking

observations. The view was, to me, so novel in character, so beautiful,
so full of revelations that, for a long time, I was too excited to work. The
other side, though less unusual, was hardly less wonderful. There the
eye plunged down into the depth of the funnel, and beheld the stone-
avalanches beginning their fall. Far below were the flocks of birds flying
about the rocks. Their cries came faintly up to us. Finally, close at hand
there was the great dolomite cliff, an absolute wall, more than ever
resembling some artificial structure, the work of giants, falling to decay.
The varied colouring of its beds and the vertical streaks caused by
trickling water were as beautiful close at hand as when seen from the
depths of the gulf of air below. We walked along the narrow ridge to the
actual foot of this cliff, where the arête rises vertically, so that the
further ascent must be made by the north-east face. There was a height
of about 500 feet to be climbed by way of snow slopes, here and there
narrowing into gullies between protruding beds of rock—so, at least, we
thought, but the attempt showed that the slopes were of hard ice. The
step-cutting involved had no attractions, for there was nothing to be
gained by ascending to the peak. It would only show, on the other side,
country already known to us, whilst we were to have many better
opportunities of looking northward from points both higher and better
situated. What settled the matter finally was the sight of our men just
arriving at camp heavily laden with good things. We accordingly turned
round and took the easy way downhill, glissading a good part of it on
treacherous snow-covered ice.
After supper another expedition was made down the glacier all along
under the Pretender’s face, in further investigation of the fault. It is only
thus, by constant moving about beneath a great cliff, that one is finally
enabled to realise its magnitude. One true measure of scale that a
healthy man possesses is fatigue. When you have learned by actual
experience that it takes several days’ marching to pass the base of a big
Himalayan mountain, you begin to feel the size of the thing. A precipice
of 200 feet differs only in size from one of 2000 feet. To appreciate the
majesty of the larger, you must become physically conscious of its scale.
Such knowledge has to be laboriously acquired. No one, I imagine, who
has not climbed the Matterhorn, can have any real conception of the
magnitude of the pyramid beheld in the view from the Riffel; yet a
consciousness of the magnitude is an essential element in the
impressiveness of the view. I believe that only mountain climbers are in
a position to thrill with perfect resonance to the glory of a mountain
prospect. The passion for mountain-climbing derives much of its power
over men from thus fostering and developing in them the capacity for
admiration, wonder, and worship in the presence of Nature’s
magnificence.
Next day (August 4) camp was again struck for an onward march,
some supplies being left behind for use on the way down. The crevassed
nature of the glacier involved the choice of a very devious route far out
upon the ice, then back toward the Crowns. When the foot of the middle
Crown was reached, I called for my camera, but it could not be found. It
had dropped off Nielsen’s sledge, and he must go back to retrieve it.
Garwood and I accordingly set off to climb the Crown, leaving Svensen
below, plunged again in miseries and forebodings, now that the sea was
becoming remote and snowfields were spreading their hateful expanse
around him. The pyramids of the south and middle Crowns are planted
together on a snowy plinth. Up the slope of this we ascended on ski,
taking a devious course to avoid the steepest incline, at the same time
steering clear of a few groups of open crevasses. In three-quarters of an
hour we were standing at the foot of the rocks, where the ski were left
behind. A long and steep slope of débris had next to be surmounted.
The material lies in an unstable condition and slips away beneath the
foot at every step. Keeping as close as possible to the left arête, we
gained height steadily. The débris accumulation becomes thinner as the
summit is approached. Halfway up, little walls of rock emerge, and
afford some agreeable scrambling. By the last of these the arête itself is
gained and the ascent completed along it, except where an overhanging
snow cornice forces the climber down on the south face. A little chimney
gives access to the crowning rock (4000 ft.). The ascent from the top of
the snow-slope took three-quarters of an hour. It is easy enough. The
southern Crown (3840 ft.) can be similarly climbed by its south face, but
the northern Crown (4020 ft.) would be more difficult, for it is cut off,
apparently all the way round, by a short precipice, perhaps a hundred
feet high. There are some gullies grooved into this wall, but they too are
vertical. One or other of them would certainly prove climbable if any one
cared to give the time needed for the attempt. All three Crowns were
reputed inaccessible by the general opinion of persons who had only
seen them from Kings Bay.
Our ascent was made for the purpose of obtaining a view, and
generously were we rewarded. The northern Crown is higher than the
middle one, and that in turn than the southern; but the differences are a
few feet only, whilst in point of situation the middle Crown is best placed
for a panorama. Garwood and I agreed that it was the most beautiful
we had seen in Spitsbergen, though it was afterwards equalled by the
view from the Diadem, and surpassed, in some respects, by that from
Mount Hedgehog. What struck us most was the colour. The desert of
snow was bluish or purplish-grey; only the sea-mist, hiding Kings Bay
and the foot of the glacier, was pure white. In the foreground were the
golden Crowns above purple slopes casting rich blue shadows. On the
snowfields lay many sapphire-blue lakes. All the rock in sight was of
some rich colour—yellow, orange, purple, red. Large glaciers radiated
away in several directions: one down to Ekman Bay, whose head we
could see, another to Ice Fjord, beyond whose distant waters we
recognised Advent Bay and the hills behind it, with clouds lying still upon
them. Last year, whenever we saw King James Land in the distance the
sun was always shining on it. This year the Advent Vale region was
hardly ever seen clear of clouds. It is the bad weather, as King James
Land is the fine weather region of Spitsbergen.
To the south were a maze and multitude of peaks. We thought that
we identified Hornsunds Tind in a solitary white tower very far away. I
afterward took a true bearing of it with the theodolite, and, on reducing
the observation at home, find that the peak observed stands exactly in
the line of Hornsunds Tind; so that if the two are not identical the
coincidence is extraordinary. The distance of the mountain from the
Three Crowns is just a hundred miles. I find it difficult to believe that
such a distance can often be pierced by the sight in the relatively dense
atmosphere of Spitsbergen. Foreland Sound was, as usual, full of fog,
but the peaks of the Foreland itself rose out of its shining embrace. The
highest group is south of the middle of the island; its members are
beautifully white and of graceful form. Farther north the peaks are
smaller and only their tips appeared. The Cross Bay Mountains with their
serrated edge looked finer than ever; then came the great snowfield,
beheld in all its extent, stretching up to a high undulating crest and back
to remote bays and hollows—fascinating to look upon, but who shall say
how wearisome to wander over? Far away to the north-east was a row
of mountains of varied forms, some white and dome-like, others sharply
pointed, others again chisel-edged. We saw them now for the first time,
and believed them to be the range that borders Wijde Bay on the west;
but they have since proved to be the mountains at the head of that bay,
between it and Dicksons, a range of unsuspected importance in the
structure of the country. The sky overhead was blue and clear, fading
downward into white, as in an old Flemish picture. There was no
movement in the cool air. Garwood left me alone on the top and went
down to crack rocks. Long did I sit in perfection of enjoyment, letting
my eye roam round and round the amazing panorama. There was a
peculiar sensation of being in the midst of a strange world, whose parts
seemed to radiate from this point. Never did I feel more keenly the
wonder of the domain of ice. Utter silence reigned, till there came a
writhing in the air, heard but not felt. It passed, returned, and passed
again, as though flocks of invisible beings were hurrying by on powerful
wings.
Chilled to the bone, at length I began the descent, picking up
Garwood and some of his fossil spoils on the way. A magnificent ski-slide
carried us in a great curving zigzag, first to the foot of the southern
Crown, then round the snowy base to the tents. We dropped a thousand
feet in a few minutes. So keen was the joy of this rush through the air,
that we talked of scrambling up again to repeat it, but the attractions of
supper proved more powerful than those of glissading.
Our view from the middle Crown showed that nothing was to be
gained by pushing camp farther north, unless we went very much
farther than the means at our disposal permitted. The whole region for
many miles round could be mapped from the summits of hills within
reach of our present camp. We judged it better, therefore, to climb from
that base, rather than to spend time dragging sledges about over almost
featureless snowfields. So, next morning (August 5), away we went on
ski—Garwood, Nielsen, and I—carrying instruments and food on our
backs, and delighted to have no hindering load a-drag behind. The
weather continued faultless. Our plan was to follow the left margin of
the glacier to the bay beyond the northern Crown, to turn up that to its
head, and to climb the Diadem Peak, whose situation seemed specially
favourable for a view. The snow was very soft and became softer every
hour, but we shuffled comfortably over it and pitied our poor colleagues
in the Alps, wading knee-deep in névé. The surface was not really in
good condition for skiing; it was too soft and adhesive to be slippery.
However, we made good progress, and in less than two hours the
northern Crown was passed and the side glacier opened. It flows down
from a ring of dolomite-capped peaks and comes out into the main
glacier between the northern Crown and the peak beyond it, named by
us the Exile because its crown has been wholly denuded away. It is a
regular pyramid of red sandstone with top and corners rounded off.
There is not a fragment of rock visible in situ, the whole solid substance
of the mountain being buried beneath accumulations of débris.
Turning, then, with the northern Crown on our right hand, the Exile on
our left, and the great snowfield at our backs, we made diagonally up
the side glacier toward a snow-saddle between the Exile and the
Diadem. All the snow was saturated with water, which gravitated to the
middle of the valley and formed a great Slough of Despond there.
Advancing very gingerly to find a way across, I suddenly sank up to my
waist in the freezing mixture. The ski turned round under my feet and
fastened them down, so that I was helplessly anchored, and it was all
that Nielsen and Garwood could do to withdraw me from the
uncomfortable position. We ultimately passed round the head of the
Slough and swiftly made for the rocks of the Exile, where I undressed
and wrung out my dripping things. Whether it was more comfortable to
sit half-clothed while the things dried, or to put them on in a sodden
condition, was a question I am now enabled to decide by experience.
Fortunately the sunshine had a little warmth in it, but the preliminary
bath certainly did not add to the enjoyment of lunch.
 Just below the rocks was an open bergschrund into which Nielsen
tumbled, ski and all, but he caught the upper edge and extricated
himself with a mighty kick and pull. The hidden crevasses over which we
slid were countless, but the ski deprived them of all power to injure or
annoy. A slide from the rocks to the broad snow-saddle, then the ascent
of the Diadem began. We knew that it would present no difficulties
below the summit rocks. They were vertical on our side, but there were
indications that the snow-slope reached far up them on the other. For
some distance we could climb straight ahead; then the slope steepened
and we had to zigzag, each man choosing his own route. About six
hundred feet below the top, ski could no further go, for the surface was
hard frozen, so that they obtained no grip upon it. They were
accordingly left behind, planted erect, for if they are left lying down they
will assuredly find means to break loose and go careering away to some
remote level place. As soon as it became a question of kicking steps in
the increasingly hard and steep slope, the scattered elements of the
party concentrated and so came to the foot of the final peak together. A
snow-slope, as we had foreseen, reached almost to the top, but it was
cut across by two large bergschrunds, well enough bridged. The rope
was now put on and the final approaches made in orthodox fashion.
Scrambling up a few steep rocks, we came out on the curious little flat
summit plain (4154 ft.), from whose edges the drop is vertical all round,
except where the slope we ascended abuts.
The view resembled that from the middle Crown, but was more
extensive to the north and east. The whole island was displayed. We
overlooked the region of almost horizontally-bedded, chocolate-coloured
sandstone, capped with dolomite near at hand, but dipping away from
the old rocks underlying it, which appeared in the north-east as
mountain ranges. Advent Bay was again clearly visible across Ice Fjord,
so that the Diadem and the Crowns can be seen from the hotel there, a
fact previously unsuspected. I set up the instruments and worked for
more than an hour, growing colder and colder in the raw air. Garwood
and Nielsen warmed themselves by building a big cairn as a monument
of our climb.
The first stage of the descent required some care, for the slope was
steep and of ice, whilst the bridges over the bergschrunds did not
appear particularly strong. Once on the main snow-slope the rope could
be laid aside and each could make for his ski by the shortest route.
Nielsen went on ahead and disappeared over the bulging declivity at a
great rate, but when I tried to follow his example I found it difficult to
maintain a footing on the hard, icy slope. The boards under my feet shot
away so quickly that without a powerful break I could not maintain my
balance. No application of the spike of the ice-axe to the slope produced
friction enough to prevent the bewilderment of a lightning-like descent,
which always ended in a shattering overthrow. How Nielsen had
managed remained a mystery to me, till I came up with him and learnt
that he had put his ice-axe between his legs and sat upon it, thus
turning himself into a tripod on runners. Riding, like a witch on a
broomstick, he gained the gentler slope below without delay or
misfortune. Garwood was less lucky, for one of his ski gave him the slip
and raced away on its own account. We heard him howling aloft, but
knew not what about till his truant shoe had dashed past, heading for a
number of open crevasses. It leapt these in fine style, but bending away
to the right, made for the hollow, north of the Exile, to which we had to
descend to fetch it. Rather than reascend and return over the mile of
snow-slope down which the ski had shot, we changed the route of our
return. To see Garwood walking about unroped among the maze of
crevasses and crossing bergschrunds by rotten snow-bridges was
decidedly unpleasant. If he had fallen through anywhere we could have
done nothing for him, and he would never have been seen again; but
the fates were propitious. Instead of sliding down as we did, he had to
wade through knee-deep snow, but that was the limit of his misfortune.
The great snowfield was joined at the north foot of the Exile, and
straight running made for camp. It was a long and thirsty shuffle back,
for, since my immersion, we had come across no drop of drinkable
water, all that flows from the Exile and the northern Crown being
chocolate-coloured and thick with sand. Areas of snow formation, new
to us in appearance, were passed below the Exile; the most remarkable
was where the surface of the névé was covered with a kind of scaly
armour-plating, consisting of discs or flakes of ice, hard-frozen together,
piled up and projecting over one another. Wind was the determining
agent, I fancy, in producing this phenomenon. Steadily plodding on over
the now uneven and adhesive snow, at last we reached camp, about
midnight, well satisfied with the expedition. We had travelled eighteen
and a half miles over the softest névé snow imaginable, besides climbing
our peak and devoting some hours, en route and on the top, to the
work of surveying. Without ski this would have been hard work for three
days. During our absence Svensen had cleaned out the tents, dried and
aired our things, and otherwise made himself useful. He had never
expected us to appear again, so that his work was perhaps the more
meritorious. Late at night we heard him lying in his tent and
“prophesying” (as we used to call it) in deep and solemn tones to
Nielsen. The further we went from the coast the more frequent and
solemn were these deliverances, not a word of which could we
understand. I asked Nielsen what they were about. “Oh,” he said, “he
talks about his farm and his old woman, and what she gives him to eat;
and then he says if he ever gets back home he will not go away any
more as long as he lives.”
A few hours later Svensen set forth on his ski to fetch an instrument I
required from the baggage below the Pretender. He was instructed on
no account to quit the tracks made by the sledges on the way up, and to
take care not to fall into any of the crevasses. Once fairly alone on the
glacier, he proceeded to set these directions at naught. The tracks were
devious; he would make a short cut and save himself time and distance.
What mattered the maze of concealed crevasses? He frankly walked
along them, whether on their arched roofs or the ice beside them being
a mere matter of chance. We saw his tracks next day and wondered at
his many escapes. As it was, he fell into two crevasses and only
extricated himself with much difficulty. The Svensen that returned to
camp was a yet sadder and more pessimistic individual than the one
that set forth. He had looked Death in the face, and seemed to feel
swindled in that he had escaped destruction.
This day the sky was actually covered with an unmistakable heat
haze. Thunderstorms, I believe, never occur in Spitsbergen; if we had
not known this, we should have thought one was brewing. It was
actually hot and stuffy within the tent, but outside the temperature was
perfect. Our intention was to climb the middle Crown again, when
Svensen returned, and to spend some hours on the mountain, Garwood
photographing and hunting for fossils in the limestone, I observing
angles. At last we could set forth with theodolite and whole-plate
camera for the top of the Crown. There was no novelty in the ascent,
except that the sky was steadily clouding over, so that we had to race
the weather. Unfortunately the clouds won. The sun was blotted out
when we reached the top, many hills were obscured by clouds, and the
panorama was rendered relatively uninteresting. There was nothing for
Garwood to photograph, and far fewer points for me to observe than I
could have wished. The cold became bitter. Fiddling with the little screws
of the theodolite was horribly painful. I endured it for more than an hour
before complete numbness rendered further work of that kind
impossible. Nielsen kept warmth in his veins by prizing crags away; they
thundered and crashed over the precipice on the north, finding a swift
descent down one of the many vertical chimneys, and then rushing out
on the snow-slope beneath. The results of his labours were widely
spread abroad below. Before packing up to descend we all joined in
building a big cairn, which, I think, will last for many years. A hurried
descent down rocks and screes and a fine ski-slide to camp set the
blood circulating merrily in our veins. The tents were just within the
margin of a fog, which hung like a veil over the western landscape,
where a mottled roof of cloud above the jagged crest of the Cross Bay
hills shone golden bright, fading away below into the misty grey
foreground of vaguely-outlined, broken ice.
 CHAPTER VIII
RETURN TO KINGS BAY

All appearances were convincing that the weather had finally broken
up, but a charm seemed to lie upon King James Land this year, for next
morning (August 7) was fine as ever, with skies brilliantly clear. The
white fog still covered the bay and the glacier’s foot, but retreated
before us as we advanced on the downward journey, for which the time
had now come. Instead of going far out on to the glacier, as in our
ascent, we kept a more direct course, for crevasses that are too wide to
drag sledges over when going uphill are passable on the way down. The
sledges had to make many a downward jump, and were greatly
strained, but we reckoned they would hold out to the coast, and so let
them take their luck. It was none of the best. A certain broad crevasse
opposed to our advance its yawning chasm, whose higher side was
much above the lower. The first sledge took the jump safely, but the
second landed heavily on its nose, and one runner snapped in half. We
tied it up with string, but the jagged edge greatly increased the friction
during the remainder of the journey. Near the Pretender we re-entered
the circuit of the nesting birds, and found their feathers at every step of
the way. A solitary fulmar sitting on the ice only stirred when we
approached him within two yards. Then he flapped his wings and ran,
gradually rising into the air and helping himself up by beating the
ground with his feet, the action used by fulmars when they rise from
water. He did not fly far, for he was obviously ill. Doubtless a glaucous
gull presently put an end to his existence.
Having kept along the left side of the glacier, we came, at the foot of
the Pretender, as we knew we must, to a steep ice staircase, a slope of
about 200 feet, broken by a series of large crevasses. A longitudinal fold
in the ice, caused by the narrowing of the glacier at this point, added a
more complex irregularity to the step-like descent. This was the worst
place we had to convey sledges over on the glaciers of Spitsbergen; nor
shall I attempt to describe our labours. The sledges were slung across
some crevasses, let down over others, gingerly conducted along ridges
of ice narrower than themselves, with profound chasms on each side,
hauled round the flanks of seracs, and otherwise forced forward as
circumstances decreed. Once only did a misfortune occur, and then the
fault was mine. The slope was very steep, and there was a crevasse in
the way. Nielsen got on to its lower lip and began lifting the bow of the
sledge forward by means of the drag-rope. I was hanging on behind
with the pick-end of the ice-axe hitched into the stern. Just at the critical
moment something gave way. The ice-axe slipped out; I fell backwards;
the sledge lumbered down. That it would go right into the crevasse and
be utterly lost seemed certain. But no! it merely turned a somersault
and wedged itself in between two projecting noses of ice, which held it
firmly, till, with the assistance of the others, we brought it safe to land.
Shortly afterward the site of Pretender Camp was reached, and our little
heap of stores found undisturbed by foxes or birds.
We knew that the most tiresome part of the day’s journey was yet to
come; the lunch-halt was consequently prolonged. To the foot of
Pretender Pass the way was easy enough, but beyond that point
difficulties were bound to accumulate, for the glacier became so
crevassed as to be impassable even for men without sledges, whilst,
instead of snow-slopes along the left bank, there was a widening lateral
moraine. Fortunately we found an irregular belt of snow between the
ridge of this moraine and the débris-slope behind it; along that belt we
were able to make intermittent advance, though the snow was freely
strewn with blocks of stone, over and around which, up and down and
in and out, the sledges had to be lifted and dragged. We were thankful
even for this small mercy, seeing that, if the snow had not been there,
we must have raised the sledges bodily and carried them more than a
mile over the nastiest kind of moraine. As it was, we had to carry them
for several short spells. How easy it looks on paper! Four men, one at
each corner of the sledge; they lift her, and along she goes. But in
practice, when the ground to be traversed consists of loose rocks, each
about the size of a man’s head, with ice below them, sloping this way
and that, uphill two yards, downhill three yards, now tilted to the right,
now to the left, some one is always stumbling. They jog one another
from side to side. The weight gets bandied about and heaved in all
directions, so that each wastes most of his work in counter-balancing
the unintentional irregularities of his fellows’ efforts. A halt had to be
made halfway along, but we vowed to finish this horrible part of the
route before camping. The stove was lit and cocoa brewed to put heart
into the men; then on again, plunging, tripping, twisting ankles, barking
shins, till at last there came a practicable though lumpy stretch of ice
alongside the moraine, and we could launch the sledges on it and haul
them forward with less toil. We were close to the angle where Kings and
Highway glaciers join, and the lateral moraines of both, uniting at the
promontory of the dividing mountain, flow out as a medial moraine, and
are carried on by the glacier and ultimately dumped over the ice-cliff
into Kings Bay. We crossed this medial moraine at the earliest
convenient place, then followed along beside it till near midnight, when
somebody, turning round to survey the view, found it beautiful, and
proposed that camp should be pitched straightway.
The air was crisp and cold. The sun shone golden in the north, just
tinged with the first promise of its winter setting. The mellow light
flooded with unusual glory of colour the many-tinted rocks of the
Crowns and Pretender, grouped together in fine assemblage between
the two great glaciers, now both at once beheld back to their highest
snowfields. Such purples as the autumnal midnight sun pours out on the
so-called Liefde-Bay sandstones of Spitzbergen had no rival even in the
richest product of Tyrian skill. All night long the glacier worked and
cracked beneath us in its onward flow, squeezing its slow way down
through the narrowing channel. Loud reports disturbed our slumbers,
and at an early hour brought us back to consciousness of the beauty of
the world and the continuing loveliness of the weather.
The sky remained clear, and the white fog brooded over the waters of
the bay, when the men started down with the sledges, leaving us to sit
awhile on convenient rocks, smoking and enjoying the splendid scenery.
Presently we also set forth, not down, but across Highway Glacier to
examine the rocks of its left bank. A very large lake-basin had to be
crossed at the margin of the ice. It proved to have been drained by the
biggest ice-tunnel I ever saw, a cavern at least fifty feet in diameter and
more than a hundred yards long. I bolted into it, under the stones
perched loosely on its brow, and took some photographs of the weird
grotto, whilst Garwood climbed the riskily loose cliff behind and hunted
for fossils. Keeping across the mouth of a minor side glacier, we came to
the moraine crossed by us with so much trouble on the upward way.
The great hollow beyond it was now perceived to be another and yet
larger lake-basin, drained in its turn by the ice-cañon which had formed
one of our first considerable impediments. This lake-basin is more than
half a mile in length, and some hundreds of yards wide. It lies at the
foot of Mount Nielsen. Here, losing sight of Garwood, I turned to seek
the sledges. Not finding them, and being too cold to loiter about, I
walked briskly on down the foot of the glacier, and did not halt till the
base camp was reached. It remained just as we left it, thank goodness!
But it must have had a narrow escape, for, at some time during our
absence, a flood of water came down the fan on which it stood, cutting
a new channel, whose still wet margin ran less than a hand’s breadth
from the angle of the tent. Had the channel been deflected a couple of
yards, all our goods would have gone to sea!
The roof of fog was overhead, yet the view was most beautiful, for
the sun shone through holes in it upon the glacier’s terminal cliff, barring
it with vertical bands of light and colour. There were stripes of purple,
violet, green, blue, and white, made by the staining of the ice with stone
débris, or by new fractures manifesting the varying transparency of the
mass, or by the play of light and shadow upon it. The jagged hills looked
down through holes or behind veils of mist. The water was absolutely
calm, but more thickly covered with broken ice than when we last
beheld it; in fact, over great areas, the floating blocks seemed to form a
continuous ice-covering. In calm weather this mattered little, but if a
northerly wind set in, all the ice would be driven and packed down upon
us, and we should be imprisoned, who could say for how long?
Obviously, therefore, it would be our business to shift camp as soon as
possible to some more favourable situation.
Long I sat in the tent-door gazing at the view and dreaming. What
changes had taken place here since Professor Sven Lovén’s visit in 1837,
the first visit of any man of science to this part of Spitsbergen! The
island of which he wrote so fully, with its “diminutive Alps” and
moraines, was separated from the glacier at that time by a channel of
open water 1000 feet wide; now the glacier almost surrounds it and has
buried out of sight the ground on which he stood. It had already done
so before Nordenskiöld’s visit in 1861, since when no considerable
changes have taken place. This is only one of many instances of glacial
advance during the present century. A comparison between the
seventeenth and eighteenth century Dutch charts and the maps of the
present day proves the general truth of this observation. The
development seems to be still in progress. Witness the great glacier-
front which has descended into Agardh Bay since 1871, and over which
we went in crossing the Ivory Gate last year. Glaciers which end in
shallow waters must, indeed, be advancing slowly as they fill up the bay
heads, but this does not suffice to explain so great an advance as that
of the Kings Glacier between 1837 and 1861.
The arriving sledges, dragged by men soaking with perspiration,
stopped these meditations. Both sledges were on the point of breaking
up, such had been the strain upon them during the last fortnight. They
were extra strongly built, and the runners were protected with metal
sheaths, yet there was not a sound joint left in them. The metal had all
been scraped and torn away, the runners smashed up. If ordinary arctic
travel were as rough as this work over crevassed inland glaciers, such a
sledging expedition as Nansen made from the Fram would be
impossible, for no sledge could hold out a tenth part of his course. Our
sledges, moreover, were lightly laden with about a third of the normal
arctic load. Had they been heavier, they could not have been dragged
along at all, or if forced forward they would have broken up the first day.
It is only on returning to the coast that one obtains a correct
realisation of the silence of the higher regions. The glacier-front kept
“calving”; the floating ice kept cracking up and turning over; there was a
noisy torrent flooding down close to camp. Stones fell; waves broke on
the shore. Such noises for a long time drove sleep away. When I did
slumber it was to dream of glacier-lakes bursting, of avalanches falling,
and other catastrophes.
Next day we had the boat to drag down to the sea—two hours’ work—
all our baggage to overhaul, pack, and portage, so that it was late in the
afternoon before we were ready to sail. The long hours of work were
enlivened by the charm of the scenery beneath the grey roof of sea-fog,
which still remained just where it had hung for so many days. The
variety of effects was extraordinary, for there was no wind to move the
fog, nor sunshine coming through it. The floating ice sometimes stood
out white against the purple background and dark sky, sometimes dark
against a white curtain of mist, and sometimes it glittered behind a
vaporous veil. The water was now dark, like lead, now bright as
burnished steel. There was continual change, yet no visible cause for
change. Out into this fairy region of calm water and pure ice at last we
rowed in search of new scenes, new beauty, and new delights.
Our first goal was one of Lovén’s Islands, away out in the midst of the
bay, right over against the ice-cliff of the Kings Glacier. To reach this we
had to row through a bed of water so closely covered with broken ice
that a way was made for the boat by pushing the fragments asunder.
They were of all sizes and colours. Surfaces that had been exposed to
the air for some time were white, as all ice becomes under such
conditions. Others newly cloven, or that had formed till recently the
submerged face of floating blocks, were blue or green. There were pink
pieces, dusted over with sandstone débris; but the majority of the small
blocks, and most were small, were crystal clear, like lumps of purest
glass. The water was absolutely still. Sunshine lay upon it, and the great
glacier-cliff, along which we rowed, was reflected from the watery
mirror. Every few minutes the glacier “calved,” and the resulting waves
rattled the ice about us, whilst the booming thunder came echoing back
from remote hollows of the hills. Nielsen was reminded of days spent by
him as a sailor in fogs on the Newfoundland banks, when, as he said,
they used to smell the icebergs long before they loomed into view. Kings
Bay, of course, presents no bergs comparable in size to those that drift
southward down the coast of Greenland, though the floating masses we
were soon to approach were much larger than those ordinarily met with
in Spitsbergen waters. As our distance from the south shore of the bay
increased, the mountains behind it were better seen, and proved to be a
fine ridge with many peaks, the watershed between Kings and English
bays. A series of glaciers descend in their hollows, but none reach the
sea, for there is a broad belt of flat land all along the southern shore.
The view up Kings Glacier now became of entrancing beauty as the fog
cleared away, and all our peaks from Mount Nielsen round to the
Diadem were disclosed. How different was this view to our eyes, which
recognised every feature and knew what was behind every impediment,
from our first outlook there last year, in a brief interval between two
storms! The culmination of the charm came when the small, partly ice-
covered island rose into our foreground, and the surging waves of
splintered glacier thrown up behind it contrasted with the smooth wide-
spreading snowfields far beyond. The ice-cliff north of the island was
more shattered than any we had yet beheld. Here the greatest floating
bergs enter the sea. They do not fall into it, but simply float away, being
already quite detached from one another by the deep clefts of the ice.
From an examination of a great many sea-fronting glacier-sections we
learnt that crevasses, however long and wide, seldom penetrate very far
down into the mass of ice. I do not remember ever to have seen any
crevasse (except at this point) which cut a glacier-cliff down to sea-level.
Higher up in the névé region crevasses may be more profound, but
towards a glacier’s snout I am sure that their depth is often greatly
overestimated. The ice in the foundation of a glacier exists under great
pressure and behaves very differently from the surface ice, which is free
to break up under lateral strain. A careful study of arctic ice-cliffs would,
I think, give rise to several unexpected revelations. The opening up of
Spitsbergen to ordinary summer travellers would enable such simple but
illuminating researches to be undertaken by holiday-making men of
science.
The archipelago, which I have named Lovén’s Islands, after the
explorer who first recorded a visit to them, was now close at hand. We
made for a convenient cove and landed. Countless screaming terns
saluted us with a chorus of unmistakable imprecations. No bird that ever
I saw can swear like a tern. Till it opens its mouth you would think it the
very incarnation of gentleness and grace, such the purity of its white
plumage, the slenderness of its form, and the elegance of all its
motions. But it is my matured conviction that in every tern there resides
the spirit of a departed bargee. On these islands Lovén found countless
nesting birds of many sorts, besides the spoor of reindeer and foxes. We
found only eider-ducks, terns, and a very few geese; of reindeer not a
trace. There are no reindeer left on the west coast of Spitsbergen. We
never saw a footprint on the shores of Klaas Billen Bay, Kings Bay, or
Horn Sound this year, though in all three bays are square miles of
country admirably suited to feed and maintain them and once
supporting large herds. The ruthless Norwegian hunter has exterminated
them utterly.
 I need not expatiate on the gorgeousness of the view from these
islands. It was especially fine to the north where white icebergs of all
fantastic forms floated in the dark purple reflections of the hills. The
only sound heard, besides the screaming of the terns and the boom of
the glacier-cliff, was the innumerable ploppings of water against the
myriad floating blocks of ice. We landed on another island to cook a
meal and survey. The little plants were putting on their autumnal
colourings, most of the birds-nests were abandoned, the young broods
—alas! sadly few in numbers—disporting themselves in the neighbouring
waters. All the islands are smoothed by ice, for the Kings Glacier was
once at least 500 feet thicker and very much longer than now. Probably,
there are other mounds of rock, continuing under the glacier the line of
these islands, and rumpling up the ice into a crevassed condition
otherwise difficult to account for.
Turning away from the islands, we rowed toward the east end of the
rounded hill standing out into the fjord, to which we gave the name
Blomstrand’s Mound. From the published account of the Swedish
Expedition of 1861, we were led to expect that Scoresby’s Grotto would
be found in this direction. It was only afterwards, when we procured a
copy in the original Swedish, to which are appended maps, not
reproduced in the German translation, that we discovered the
whereabouts of this grotto in Blomstrand’s Harbour.[9] We now had to
wind about amongst large floating towers and castles of ice,
entrancingly beautiful. The number of the great floating bergs seemed
countless. We passed by devious ways along channels, between them,
often being so entirely surrounded as to seem on a lake built all about
with ice-castles. Some were hollowed out into caverns with walls thin
enough to let the light of the low hanging midnight sun shine through.
We manœuvred to get one of these directly between us and the sun, so
as to enjoy the resplendence of its opalescent shimmer, contrasted with
the blueness of the shadowed side of the ice. Deep in the substance of
the crystalline wall shone out a host of sparkling points like many-
faceted diamonds enclosed in cloudy crystal. The evening was perfect:
calm, bright, mellow, clear to the remotest distance, save just at one
point where a sea-mist came pouring over a pass from English Bay, with
a rainbow mantling on its shoulder.
 The drowsily creaking oars at length brought us to the mainland,
where camp was quickly pitched on soft ground near a brook. There
was no grotto anywhere in the neighbourhood. The slope of
Blomstrand’s Mound rose temptingly behind. With plane-table and
camera we hastened forth to gain a more commanding panorama.
About 500 feet up was a convenient knoll, whence the upper part of the
mound was displayed as an undulating plateau bending away to the
culminating dome of the hill over a couple of miles of bog land and
broken rocks, extraordinarily disagreeable to walk upon. The whole
mound is encircled on three sides by the bay, whilst on the fourth a
large glacier descending from the north abuts against it, and sends an
arm down into the sea on either side. The view was, of course, most
extensive and beheld under rarely favourable conditions, for the low-
striking, golden sunlight mellowed all the glaciers and the hills. The bay
spread abroad below, as in a map, and the icebergs on its surface were
tiny dots of white, whilst the areas closely covered with smaller, broken
ice resembled surfaces crisped by some gentle breeze.
At 4 a.m. (August 10) we turned in. A few hours later the weather was
still fine, but at noon the Crowns began to put on caps of cloud. Mists
gathered in all directions, wind rose, and soon all was overcast and rain
was falling on the tent. The spell of fine weather was, in fact, at an end.
By 3 o’clock we were rowing away in water no longer calm. Yet it was
charming to watch the graceful rocking of the smaller pieces of floating
ice, and to see them turn over as their equilibrium was disturbed. The
old white surface went under, the new blue side came up. There was
now but one day left before the Kvik ought to call for us. The weather
was too thick for surveying, so we settled to make at once for Coal
Haven, where tertiary fossil plants had been found, though not the
characteristic Taxodium.[10] Accordingly we rowed straight across the
bay, though no sign could be seen of any inlet such as the chart marks.
There is, in fact, no inlet at all, but only a low headland that protects the
anchorage from westerly winds. It is completely open to north and east.
On reaching the south coast and finding no trace of the expected inlet,
we rowed along the shore toward Quade Hook for a couple of miles. It
was an open, pebbly beach, on which we might have hauled up the
boat, but whence it could not have been launched in face of any sea,
like that now threatening to rise. Leaving the men to keep the boat off
shore, Garwood and I landed to prospect. Just behind the narrow beach
was a low cliff, the front of a wide area of boggy and stony ground from
which the hills rise, half a mile or so inland. Westward was no bay
whatever, so we concluded that Coal Haven lay to the east, where, in
fact, we presently discovered it, behind a low spit of shingle a few yards
wide, enclosing a lagoon.
While the men pitched camp, Garwood and I walked inland to look for
the coal-bed. Its position is carefully described by Lamont, but we had
only the book on the Swedish expedition of 1861 with us, and, though
the members of that party visited and, I believe, discovered the coal,
they give no accurate account of its position. We dimly remembered that
it was found where a glacier-stream cuts a section into the ground.
There were two glaciers ending about a mile inland from the bay, so we
walked towards them and tracked up every stream flowing from them,
but found no coal. I then went to the west, Garwood to the east, till
every inch of land within Coal Haven had been traversed. It was no
good. A big stone man planted on a mound, and with a slanting stick
built into it, seemed likely to be a guide to the hidden treasure; but
there was no coal in the mound, nor anywhere in the direction to which
the stick pointed. We have since learnt that the cairn marks one of the
points whose position was astronomically fixed by the Swedes,[11] and
that it has nothing to do with the coal, which in fact is not found within
Coal Haven at all, but within the next bay to the east, where of course
we did not look for it.
A low cloud-roof, intermittently dropping rain, hung continuously over
Coal Haven during our visit. Only the bases of hills and the grey snouts
of glaciers emerged beneath it. Sometimes a dense mist came up; rarely
the drizzle held off for half an hour. In this cheerless case black
melancholy invaded Svensen. At a moment of gloomy forgetfulness he
filled the pot with sea-water for brewing soup. The mistake was
fortunately discovered in time, for there was no food to spare. When
Garwood returned with half a dozen guillemots, the last shot-cartridge
had been fired off. Svensen skinned the birds for the pot with the
sadness of a man condemned to death. “We will only eat half of them
to-night,” he said. “Why?” I asked. “Because this is the last proper food
we shall have, and we may as well make it hold out as long as possible.
Welcome to our website – the perfect destination for book lovers and
knowledge seekers. We believe that every book holds a new world,
offering opportunities for learning, discovery, and personal growth.
That’s why we are dedicated to bringing you a diverse collection of
books, ranging from classic literature and specialized publications to
self-development guides and children's books.

More than just a book-buying platform, we strive to be a bridge

connecting you with timeless cultural and intellectual values. With an
elegant, user-friendly interface and a smart search system, you can
quickly find the books that best suit your interests. Additionally,
our special promotions and home delivery services help you save time
and fully enjoy the joy of reading.

Join us on a journey of knowledge exploration, passion nurturing, and

personal growth every day!

testbankpack.com