Measurements of the annual snow accumulation have been made at many points on a traverse of north Greenland. In lat. 77–78° N. the annual accumulation above 1800 m. was about 13 gm. cm.−2 in the years 1948–53 and, in contrast to results which have been obtained further south, did not vary with longitude. In 1953–54 the accumulation was greater. The annual accumulation in north and central Greenland has varied significantly over the last 50 years, but similar variations are not shown in the precipitation records at coastal stations. Using all the available information, the mean annual accumulation on the Greenland Ice Sheet has been calculated as 29±3 gm. cm.−2.

Two small plateau ice caps in Arctic Norway are described and the amounts by which their areas have diminished during the past sixty years are assessed.

The critical density of newly fallen snow was measured during the 1956–57 winter season at two stations: Montreal Road Laboratories of the National Research Council, Ottawa, and the University of New Brunswick, Fredericton, New Brunswick. The relative compacted density or compactibility of newly fallen snow was found to depend on undisturbed density and snow temperature. A statistical equation was developed relating snow temperature and undisturbed density to the compacted density of the snow sample. Additional tests under cold room conditions indicate that grain size and grain-size distribution also have an appreciable effect on compacted density.

The recently discovered Glaciar Universidad is the second largest glacier in central Chile. Aerial photographs taken in 1945 show that just before that date it had undergone a “glacier flood” or sudden advance, similar to those suffered by four other great glaciers of central Chile between 1927 and 1947. The cause of these floods is sought. Surface features (firn line, absence of penitentes but presence of “pocket-penitents”, glacier mills, dirt cones, water-filled holes with submerged ice crystals in them) prove that Glaciar Universidad is the most northerly glacier in the Andes of an Alpine type. The disposition of blue bands, crevasses, closed crevasses and shear planes is reported. Wave ogives are studied and an explanation is given of why dark Forbes’ bands form subsequently on these waves. A kind of unstratified esker of a form similar to a deposit observed by Mr. W. H. Ward in Baffin Island, has been studied, as also has the shearing of the frontal cliff along dirt strata; a theory of both phenomena according to which shear transfers material from the bed to the surface is questioned.

Apparatus was built for deforming ice crystals under hydrostatic pressures up to 350 atmospheres. Single crystals were placed in the mounts in such a way that the deformation occurred by gliding on the basal glide plane. It was found that the shear strain rate increased as the pressure was increased at constant temperature, but that the rate is practically independent of hydrostatic pressure when the difference between the ice temperature and the melting temperature is kept constant.

The glaciological work of the Australian National Antarctic Research Expedition in 1957–58 is described, and some results are given in general terms.

A ridge of drift emerging from the snout of Flatisen resembles a small esker. It originates in a subglacial tunnel. The source of the material forming the ridge was a number of thrust planes exposed in the sides and roof of the tunnel. The main features of the tunnel and the ridge are described and the mode of formation of the ridge suggested.

The “earthquake avalanche” theory was invoked by Tarr and Martin in 1914 to explain anomalous turn-of-the-century glacier advances in Yakutat Bay, Alaska. The concept was given credence by the fact that this bay was the epicenter of a series of severe earth tremors in the autumn of 1899.

In considering alternative explanations, Tarr and Martin dismissed a record of excessive precipitation along this coast in the late 1870’s and 1880’s in the belief that the measurements were in error due to a “peculiarity in the method of measurement”. The disputed data are now known to be consistent with observed and inferred regional climatological trends in the latter half of the 19th century. The case for the climatological control of glacier fluctuations in the St. Elias District is therefore reassessed. Reference is made to new and extensive evidence from other districts in southern Alaska where the earthquake influence was negligible. It is concluded that the fluctuation pattern in the Yakutat area was not unique and that the diastrophism to which these particular resurgences have been attributed was actually but a supplemental and generally minor factor in a widespread set of glacial advances initiated by climatological causes.

The theoretical implications of changes in load conditioned by climatological parameters over the broad névés of the St. Elias Mountains are briefly discussed with respect to orogenic activity in this tectonically sensitive region.

A. N. Lewis’s scheme of Tasmania’s Pleistocene glacial history in terms of three full glaciations —Malanna (ice cap), Yolande (valley glacier) and Margaret (cirque glacier)—is criticized on a number of specific and general grounds. The area reliably known to be glaciated is thought to be much smaller than Lewis claimed. Future work on Tasmanian glaciations should not be grafted on to Lewis’s scheme and should aim especially to provide more reliable evidence for distinguishing and evaluating the glacial phases.

An attempt is made to throw some light on the physical processes in the development of penitentes as a result of new observations in Peru and a study of the literature. This paper offers a variety of approaches to the problem rather than any final view or theory, and is therefore mostly suggestive and intended to be a program for further, more detailed research.

Due to the abnormally warm summers of 1955 and 1956 the glaciers of Mount Ruapehu deteriorated to such an extent that the ash layer of the eruption of 1945 was exposed everywhere. This caused a development of ice cones similar to those occurring in Iceland. Various factors, especially heavy crevassing, which took place at the same time, are responsible for the different ways of development of dirt cones on Ruapehu.

A newly discovered pothole field in the White Mountains, N.H., is described, and is attributed to action of melt water from the last continental glacier. Discordance of pothole orientation with slope direction is explained by inferring the presence of a retaining wall of ice which controlled stream flow direction during the period of pothole formation. The potholes constitute the highest evidence of continental glacial drainage yet known in New England.