This paper presents a preliminary account of the glaciological observations made by the Antarctic Expedition of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences in Kaiser Wilhelm II Land, Queen Mary Land and Knox Coast in 1956. The topography of the edge of the ice sheet is described, and the ice regime is discussed, particularly in relation to the existence of ice-free areas such as “Bunger’s oasis”.

Recent work has resulted in recognition of an additional glaciation preceding the Waimaunga Glaciation in the late Pleistocene. This followed the mid-Pleistocene climax of earth movements responsible for most of the present mountainous relief of New Zealand, but only after an interval of time long enough for the construction and subsequent deep dissection of Banks Peninsula shield volcano. It is inferred from this and other geological evidence that the earliest late Pleistocene glaciation was separated from the early Pleistocene Ross Glaciation by several hundred thousand years, and that the Pleistocene Period altogether covers at least one million years.

Measurements of ice temperature to depths of 30–40 m. are given for a number of points on the ice sheet in MacRobertson Land. Variations of mean surface temperature with elevation and with latitude, and the temperature gradients below a depth of 15 m. are compared with results from other parts of Antarctica and from Greenland. Explanations of negative temperature gradients near the surface of ice sheets are reviewed, and an equation derived by Robin is checked against the measurements following its recent justification from conduction theory. Surface ice velocities necessary for development of the observed temperature gradients are computed, and these values are then compared with ice velocities estimated independently from flow measurements at the coast and continuity considerations. It is found that, if negative gradients are attributed solely to the Robin effect, improbably high ice velocities are called for, and so climatic change is reconsidered. Some evidence of secular warming in Antarctica is mentioned and a recent numerical solution of the conduction equation for the surface-warming case is described. It is concluded that the measured temperature profiles can be explained reasonably by climatic amelioration.

The failure to detect experimentally a glide direction in the ice crystal is satisfactorily explained by assuming that the crystal glides simultaneously in three symmetry-equivalent directions with a response to the shear stress component in each direction that is the same as that observed for the crystal as a whole or for polycrystalline aggregates—the typical non-linear, power-type flow law. A hexagonal crystal responding to stress by this type of “non-linear crystal viscosity” behaves very differently from a tetragonal one. For a tetragonal crystal, the glide directions are well defined in the response of the crystal if the power-flow-law exponent n exceeds n ~ 1·5, whereas for a hexagonal crystal a well-defined glide direction can be observed only if n > c. 5. The response of a hexagonal crystal is entirely independent of a-axis orientation if n = 3 exactly. For 3 < n < c. 5 the true glide direction should be weakly apparent, whereas for 1 < n < 3 the crystal should show a response weakly suggestive of preferred glide in a direction perpendicular to the true glide direction. In the observed range of n values for ice, 2 < n < 4, the expected response to simultaneous glide differs so slightly from the hitherto-postulated a-axis-independent, “non-crystallographic” glide as to be practically undetectable experimentally. This circumstance makes it possible to identify <>as the glide direction, from structural considerations alone, and to accommodate the plastic properties of the ice crystal into the modern concepts of crystal plasticity. It may be expected that hexagonal close packed and face-centred cubic metals at high temperatures, in steady state creep, will show translation gliding without well-defined glide directions.

Results of observations on several glaciers in the Kongsfjord area are described, and comments are made concerning accumulation and ablation, glacier flow and the variation of glacier fronts. The findings are compared with those of previous workers in this district and, in particular, with those of H. W. Ahlmann. A history of the fluctuation of several ice fronts during the present century has been compiled from various sources, and some observations dating back to 1837 are mentioned.