Ice has no such rigidity as here stated. It _does_ possess in a high degree “the property of yielding to mechanical strain without rupturing.” We need not go far for evidence of this. Everybody who has skated or seen others skating on ice that is but just thick enough to “bear” must have felt or seen it yield to the mechanical strain of the skater’s weight. Under these conditions it not only bends under him, but it afterwards yields to the reaction of the water below, rising and falling in visible undulations, demonstrating most unequivocally a considerable degree of flexibility. It may be said that in this case the flexibility is due to the thinness of the ice; but this argument is unsound, inasmuch as the manifestation of such flexibility does not depend upon absolute thickness or thinness, but upon the relation of thickness to superficial extension. If a thin sheet of ice can be bent to a given arc, a thick sheet may be bent in the same degree, but the thicker ice demands a greater radius and proportionate extension of circumference. But we have direct evidence that ice of great thickness—actual glaciers—may bend to a considerable curvature before breaking. This is seen very strikingly when the uncrevassed ice-sheet of a slightly inclined _nevé_ suddenly reaches a precipice and is thrust over it. If Mr. Geikie were right, the projecting cornice thus formed should stand straight out, and then, when the transverse strain due to the weight of this rigid overhang exceeded the resistance of tenacity, it should break off short, exposing a face at right angles to the general surface of the supported body of ice. Had Mr. Geikie ever seen and carefully observed such an overhang or cornice of ice, I suspect that the above-quoted passage would not have been written. Some very fine examples of such ice-cornices are well seen from the ridge separating the Handspikjen Fjelde from the head of the Jostedal, where a view of the great _nevé_ or sneefond is obtained. This side of the _nevé_ terminates in precipitous rock-walls; at the foot of one of these is a dreary lake, the Styggevand. The overflow of the _nevé_ here forms great bending sheets that reach a short way down, and then break off and drop as small icebergs into the lake.[17]