To test Nye’s formula relating maximum surface slope at a point on an ice sheet with the thickness at that point, observations were made of the surface slope in north Greenland. Values of the shear stress on the bed at these points are calculated. It is unlikely that variations of the shear stress can be related with rates of movement. It is suggested that the difference between values of shear stress in north Greenland and those in south Greenland is at least partly due to the presence of bottom melting in the north.

Measurements have been made using two different methods of the rate at which the glacier Austerdalsbreen is slipping past its side wall at four sites. The rate of slipping varies from site to site in a way which seems to be connected with the details of glacier flow in the neighbourhood, and in all cases is less than the slip previously measured further up-glacier at the foot of one of the ice falls, and is also a smaller fraction (about one sixth) of the flow rate in the centre of the glacier. One of the methods measured the velocity of the last metre of ice, and this method gave movements which were more erratic than the other method, which measured velocity a few metres from the edge. This suggests that protuberances of rock and boulders lodged between the ice and the rock wall cause local variations in flow which are smoothed out in a few metres. The results are discussed in connection with the process of glacial erosion.

This paper gives a brief account of the results so far obtained in research in Czechoslovakia on the crystallographic, stratigraphical and thermal properties of snow cover, and the use of these data in avalanche investigations. Avalanche danger is predicted by comparing the penetration resistance of snow layers, measured with a rammsonde, with resistance graphs of typical avalanche situations.

The paper describes the expedition’s work on the north fork of the Eldridge Glacier, which is found to be of the temperate alpine type. Velocity profiles show both slip at the glacier’s edge and shear in the adjacent layers. A summer accumulation pattern is demonstrated which makes the glacial balance unusually delicate. It is concluded that glaciers in this region are near their recent maxima because the high altitude accumulation offsets the shrinking of the lower tributary glaciers. Examination of an ice-dammed lake shows the main Eldridge Glacier to be near the maximum of the last major advance which raised the level of the ice at least 60 m.