NATURAL AREAS AND REGIONS 



91 



with its continuous sheet of ice- floes 

 and bergs sweeps the Greenland coast; 

 and the west by Davis Strait, Baffin 

 Bay, and Smith Sound — a brancli of 

 the Greenland current sweeps around 

 Cape Farewell and nortliward as far 

 as the Arctic Circle. All these waters 

 are studded with bergs from the glaciers 

 and covered with vast fields of pan-ice 

 from the multitudinous fjords and bays 

 of the coast. 



GEOLOGY 



The portion of Greenland lying south 

 of the seventieth parallel, so far as 

 known, is composed of pre-Cambrian 

 granites, gneisses, and schists^ — of which 

 the gneisses are most widely distrib- 

 uted^ — with later intrusives, both acidic 

 and basic, and a few isolated areas of 

 sedimentaries of doubtful geologic age. 



Along both the mid-eastern and mid- 

 western coasts are widespread areas of 

 Tertiary basalt, which have locally 

 preserved from erosion the fossiliferous 

 Tertiary and Cretaceous sedimentaries 

 of the west coast, and the Tertiary 

 sedimentaries of the east coast. This 

 belt of basalts separates the pre-Cam- 

 brian area of the south from the north- 

 ern extent of similar gneisses, granites, 

 and schists. 



This northern area of pre-Cambrian 

 rocks, like the ^southern, is the north- 

 eastward extension of the old Canadian 

 shield, and though locally affected by 

 tectonic disturbances at various periods, 

 is generally quite similar throughout 

 its extent. It slopes toward the north 

 and west. Along its northern and north- 

 western boundaries it is overlapped by 

 Paleozoic sedimentaries from the Cam- 

 brian to the Carboniferous, some of 

 the formations being richly fossiliferous. 



PHYSIOGRAPIIY 



Outline 



Throughout its entire length of thou- 

 sands of miles, the coast-line of Green- 

 land is almost a continuous series of 

 long, deep, narrow fjords and bays 

 separated by long, narrow, peninsulas 



and headlands, aiid liurdered by innum- 

 erable skerries, islets, and islands — 

 probably the most extensive develop- 

 ment of fjords and skerries in the world. 



Generally, these fjords and the sounds 

 between the islets are bordered by such 

 high steep cliffs that landing upon them 

 is impossible, but in some localities the 

 shore is a low, sloping foreland that in 

 most places leads rapidly up to steep 

 slopes or cliffs. Many of the fjords are 

 so narrow and cliff-walled as to be 

 veritable canyons, into which the sun can 

 shine only when they open out toward it. 



A barrier of ice lies along most of the 

 coast of Greenland. The heavy ice of 

 the Arctic Ocean is swept along the north 

 and east shores of the island and even 

 around Cape Farewell, and northward 

 hundreds of miles along the west coast. 

 This Arctic ice-pack is of heavy solid 

 fields and floes, and numerous great 

 bergs. The Smith Sound Region l:)e- 

 comes relatively open in summer. 

 Baffin Bay holds three great fields known 

 as the south pack, the middle ])ack, and 

 the north pack respectively, which bear 

 in upon the Greenland shore whenever 

 the wind so drives them. 



For ten months of the year, from 

 September first to July first, practically 

 the entire coast of Greenland is inac- 

 cessible because of the ice that freezes 

 over the sea throughout the entire 

 extent of the coast. Only for a few 

 hundred miles along the mid-west coast, 

 from Godthaab northward to Proven, 

 is the open season longer, but here it 

 sometimes begins in May and continues 

 to November. The entire east coast, 

 except for a small extent about Sermilik 

 Fjord, at the mouth of which is situated 

 the Eskimo village, Angmagssalik, is 

 often icebound even in summer. From 

 Cape Farewell northward almost to 

 Godthaab, and from Upcrnivik north- 

 ward to Cape York, the coast is more or 

 less icebound also, much of the summer. 

 The Smith Sound region is relatively 

 free of ice for the two sunnncr months, 

 and some of the outermost headlands 

 like Cape Alexander are free of ice 

 throughout the year. 



