23 2 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



We know but little respecting the ice-sheet about the pole. It has 

 been fashionable to speak of an open polar sea, but no one has yet 

 penetrated into it. The impression derived from the latest Arctic 

 voyages of the American, English, Austrian, and Swedish expeditions 

 is unfavorable to the existence of permanent open water. Yet there 

 may not be an accumulation of a thick, frozen sheet, as the ice-rafts 

 floating away from this northern waste are floes rather than bergs. 

 Nares concludes that this ice is of great antiquity that it is a paleo- 

 crystic rather than an open sea. We need additional observations to 

 satisfy us that the climate is not more severe at the pole than on either 

 side, and whether the meteorological dogma of two poles of cold is 

 correct. 



Greenland. The study of the Greenland glaciers takes us a step 

 further toward the understanding of the American ice-sheet. We have 

 hardly appreciated the size of this island it being larger than the 

 Alpine glaciated tract. It is over twelve hundred miles long, and four 

 hundred broad, or as far as from Boston to the Missouri River. The 

 interior is covered by a field of ice never crossed in a direct line by 

 any civilized being. From three points attempts have been made to 

 learn something of its nature. In 1830 Keilsen went eighty miles 

 inland from Holsteinberg latitude 67 reaching the edge of the ice- 

 sheet, which could not be climbed. In 1870 Nordenskiold went in 

 a distance of thirty miles, reaching the altitude of twenty-two hun- 

 dred feet. He observed that the ice rose gradually toward the interior. 

 The outer edge is a high, precipitous wall. Once entered upon the 

 broad surface of the ice, it is like traveling upon the sea, away from 

 all sight of land. From north Greenland, Dr. Hayes penetrated to a 

 distance of seventy miles. It was a day's journey from the sea to the 

 Avail of ice. The second day was spent in climbing to the table-land ; 

 the third day allowed a progress of thirty miles, the angle of ascent 

 falling from six to two degrees. On the fourth day an altitude of 

 five thousand feet was attained, and the ice still continued to rise, 

 but, because of inclement weather, no further progress was practi- 

 cable. The view was that of a frozen Sahara, immeasurable to the 

 human eye. 



It is probable that Greenland slopes westerly in general, having its 

 main axis of elevation near the eastern border. It may be compared 

 to a broad platter inclined westerly, with occasional chinks in the sides 

 through which the ice discharges itself as if it were a viscous body. 

 The principal discharge of icebergs is upon the western side into Baf- 

 fin's Bay. Not less than thirteen glaciers are found upon the western 

 side to the south of Upernavik, about 73 north latitude, and the 

 largest ones occur farther north. Some of the berirs are three thou- 

 Band feel t hick. The Humboldt glacier empties into Smith's Sound 

 with a width of sixty miles, and showing ice-cliffs from fifty to three 

 hundred feet high above the water. The rock-cliffs adjoining are 



