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Abstract The paper attempts to relate four recent sets of measurements on the flow laws of ice: (1) Glen’s laboratory compression tests, (2) Gerrard, Perutz & Roch’s pipe experiment on the Jungfraufirn, (3) measurements of contraction rate in a tunnel in Skauthöe Glacier by McCall, and (4) measurements of contraction rate in tunnels in the Z’Mutt and Arolla Glaciers reported by Haefeli & Kasser. When they are analyzed within the framework of a general flow theory, satisfactory agreement is found between all these results, with one exception: the reported rate of collapse of the Arolla tunnel is faster than would be given by the present theory. The paper includes the theory of the slow collapse of a cylindrical or a spherical hole in a medium showing non-Newtonian viscosity.
J. F. Nye (1953) studied this question.