GEOLOGICAL CHANGES. 403 



Port Foulke, which, as before observed, rise one hun- 

 dred and ten feet above the sea-level. At Cairn Point 

 the abrasion is very marked, and, where the polished 

 line of syenitic rock leaves off and the rough rock be- 

 gins, is quite clearly denned. This same condition also 

 exists at Littleton Island (or, rather, McGary Island, 

 which lies immediately outside of it) to an almost 

 equally marked degree. I have before mentioned the 

 evidences of a similar elevation of the opposite coast 

 found in the terraced beaches of Grinnell Land. 



It is curious to observe here, actually taking place 

 before our eyes, those geological events which have 

 transpired in southern latitudes during the glacier 

 epoch, not only in the abrasion of the rock as seen at 

 Cairn Point and elsewhere, but in the changes which 

 they work in the deeper sea. In this agency the ice- 

 foot bears a conspicuous influence. This ice-foot is 

 but a shelf of ice, as it were, glued against the shore, 

 and is the winter-girdle of all the Arctic coasts. It is 

 wide or narrow as the shore slopes gently into the sea 

 or meets it abruptly. It is usually broken away to- 

 ward the close of every summer, and the masses of 

 rock which have been hurled down upon it from the 

 cliffs above are carried away and dropped in the sea, 

 when the raft has loosened from the shore and drifted 

 off, steadily melting as it floats. The amount of rock 

 thus transported to the ocean is immense, and yet it 

 falls far short of that which is carried by the icebergs ; 

 the rock and sand imbedded in which, as they lay in 

 the parent glacier, being sometimes sufficient to bear 

 them down under the weight until but the merest 

 fragment rises above the surface. As the berg melts, 

 the rocks and sand fall to the bottom of the ocean ; 

 and, if the place of their deposit should one. day rise 



