A traveller who has made one such expedition into the interior of Spitsbergen will have become acquainted with glacier phenomena such as no ordinary alpine region can display. The pools and ice caverns of Arctic glaciers, the strange blue river-tunnels through the ice, the burst lakes scattering huge ice-blocks afar, the curious sheaves of crystalline ice-rods, the rivers of water stained crimson by disintegrating dolomite rock and flowing over the white ice-like veins of jasper in marble, the frozen heaps of ice, in shape like volcanoes, which rise where springs force themselves out of the ground—these and many other strange and beautiful sights await the student of glaciers in the Arctic regions. Moreover, the glaciers themselves have quite a different look from alpine glaciers. They appear to be far more viscous, as in fact they are, so that if they end on a piece of flat ground and do not reach the sea, the end spreads out into a great round mass, as a stream of honey might if it emerged from some narrow gap on to a flat area. But where a glacier reaches the sea, and especially a great glacier perhaps seven miles in width, it has to terminate, of course, in a splendid cliff, and this cliff is, as it were, made of towering séracs, blue in the hollows and white on the crown, in height perhaps 100 feet above the water-level, and these séracs are continually falling into the sea and breaking up into little icebergs, causing a great commotion in the waters as they plunge in their fall and jostle against one another till they come to rest.
Nor must I forget to mention another of the great glories of this mountain region, to wit, the long sunset. Towards the middle of August the sun, in the hours corresponding to midnight, approaches close to the horizon, and presently actually dips beneath it. It follows that a sunset colouring, paler and more delicate but not less beautiful than that we know in the Alps, illumines the sky, the clouds, the mountains and the glaciers at this time, and that not merely for a few minutes but for four or five hours on end, according to the atmospheric conditions. I know of nothing more wonderful than to climb a mountain which commands a wide view over the flat, fog-covered ocean and the clear, snow-covered interior when the whole of this enormous expanse shines pink in the lights and blue in the shadows, and the effect lasts on for four or five hours spent amid such surroundings.
Summary, Cost, etc.
But it is not my business to describe the beauties of Arctic scenery in this place, but only to indicate as best I may how the intending mountain traveller in those regions may set to work. Conditions, of course, of accessibility and the like change from year to year, especially nowadays when Spitsbergen has become the scene of industrial undertakings; it will be necessary for any intending traveller to make inquiries well ahead as to the circumstances attending his own case. I feel convinced, however, that an enterprising party of three or four climbers could spend a season in Spitsbergen and have an excellent time at not more than twice the cost of a corresponding season in the Alps, and possibly for a good deal less. Ingenuity, adaptability and enterprise will be essential. After all, for what kind of travel that is worth while are they not?
Note.—The foregoing was written before the war. Recent commercial developments have made Spitsbergen much more easy of access.
CHAPTER XIII
THE CAUCASUS
BY HAROLD RAEBURN
The Caucasus of the mountaineer is that more or less continuous chain of great glaciated peaks which extends for nearly 600 miles between the Caspian and Black Seas.
General Topography and Structure.
Geographically, the water-parting of the ridge forms the boundary between Europe and Asia.