6 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



larger but more auspicious-looking glacier, and without difficulty, 

 by climbing over the scanty lateral moraine, reached the middle 

 of the ice. The surface, as in nearly all the Greenland glaciers, 

 was almost entirely destitute of rock debris, the sparsely scattered 

 bowlders which in a broken, zigzag line tottered over the flanks 

 of the ice sheet scarcely revealing the structure of a moraine. 

 Two miles in advance of us the ice was solid, with only knife- 

 edge cracks to indicate where it had parted and to mark the posi- 

 tions of possible past crevasses. It fell easily from the center to 



LoOKINO DOWN INTO THE SuN GlACIER FjOKD FKOM TUE IcE CaP. 



either side, describing that symmetrical dome which was apparent 

 from the water front ; seaward it descended with so gentle a slope 

 that over long areas it appeared to the eye only horizontal, and 

 elsewhere the gradient could not have exceeded five degrees. 

 Over this surface the toboggan could be drawn without difficulty, 

 and so few were the hummocks that guy-lines could readily be 

 dispensed with. We were still in the cooler hours of night, or 

 rather of the "day of night," and the sun had made but little 

 impression upon the surface. Here and there the crisp, granular 

 ice showed symptoms of early dissolution, and an occasional 

 water i)ool marked progress to the gradually advancing hours 



