Rit (Vísindafélag Íslendinga) - 01.07.1931, Blaðsíða 25

25
It will be impossible to place any fixing mark in front of
this glacier.
The third day was spent at the skridjökuls coming from the
cratervalley on the northwestern side. The icetongue is about
1,5 km. in length and almost the same in breadth. The front is
split up into many small tongues, separated by moraine hills
of older and younger origin as indicated in fig. 13. The two
southernmost tongues feed the river Gufuskálamóða, while
the water coming from the four or five northern tongues
soon joins in a deep rivercleft, called Blágil, that runs paral-
lel with the Gufuskálamóða for almost 5 km. northwards.
As no common name is applied to this glacier, I shall
refer to it as the „BIágilsjökuU“.
The moraine hills in front of the glacier are of considerable
dimensions. The height above the ice margin is in most places
about 10 m., which indicates that the glacier is becoming thinner.
A further proof of this may be seen in one place at the front,
where the ground moraine is piercing through and the glacier
seems to be disappearing on a stretch of about 1000 m2. The
fixing marks and their relative positions will be seen in fig 13.
Di A cairn on Ihe moraine at the E-side of the middle tongue.
The top white painted.
di A whife painted stoneblock to the N of Di.
Distance from Di to the glacier in direction di—Di = 25 m.
Dii A cairn on the W-side of the same tongue.
dn A small white painted cairn to the N of Dn.
Distance from Dn to the glacier in direction dn-Dn = 50 m.
Direction Dl — Dii cuts across the front limit of the glacier tongue.
The height of the glacier tongue above sea level is about 620 m.
Diii A huge basaltic block with a white painted mark on the mo-
raine ridge on the eastern side of the two small tongues be-
tween Di and Dm.
The line of vision Dl—DlII = N80 E cuts the western tongue
18 m. and the eastern one 25 m. from the ends. It must be
remarked that the tongues terminated in small snowfields
and the measurements were made down to the boundaries
between the ice and the snow.
To the E of these tongues a rather large cirque has
formed, which, however, is almost free from snow with only