GLACIATION OF GREENLAND. 297 



of 77°. We may therefore proceed to state what the explorations of the 

 western coast of the country have made known with regard to its glacial 

 condition. 



Greenland consists of two quite distinct portions. There is an interior 

 region, supposed, but not proved, to be continuous land, and generally con- 

 sidered to be entirely covered by snow or ice — the so-called "inland ice" 

 or " continental ice." That a large area is thus covered is positively known, 

 because whenever attempts have been made to penetrate into the interior 

 from the west side the country has been found to be thus buried under 

 the snow.* But there is on that side a belt of land of vai-ying width, deeply 

 intersected by fiords, not covered with snow or ice, and comparatively low. 

 This belt is narrow near the southern end of Greenland, but widens out 

 towards the north, and between the parallels of 61° and 74° it has a breadth 

 of from twenty to seventy mile.s. Rink estimates the area of the continuous 

 portion of the counti-y — that is, of the interior, unbroken, snow-covered 

 mass — at 320,000 square miles; that of the broken, fiord-intersected, mostly 

 ice-free, marginal region, at 192,000 square miles, thus giving a total of 

 512,000 square miles. 



Thus far, all attempts to penetrate sufficiently far into the heart of the 

 country to be able to say positively that it all forms one continuous mass of 

 land, and that the interior is entirely covered by snow and ice, have proved 

 failures, owing perhaps not so much to the phj'sical difficulties which present 

 themselves, as to the fact that the parties who have attempted these explora- 

 tions have not been sufficiently prepared for the work.f Some authors talk 

 of the possibility of finding, in the interior of Greenland, valleys free from 

 ice, and covered with vegetation, and possibly by forests. The general opinion 

 is. however, decidedly to the effect that the whole higher region is covered 

 with snow and ice. Nordenskjcild gives as one reason why so little is 

 known of the interior, that the natives entertain a superstitious awe of the 

 inland ice, which prejudice communicates itself, in some degree, to Europeans 



* The woi'Js snow and ice are used somewhat indiscriminately by explorers to describe the covering of frozen 

 precipitation which is spread over so large a part of Greenland. It is really, however, more properly designated 

 as jKJiv'. It is snow in process of transformation into ice, as will be more fully explained farther on. 



t There would seem to be no reason wliy a party sufficiently large, by establishing <lepots of provisions 

 in advance and giving themselves to the woi-k as those have done who had no other motive than that of get- 

 ting somewhat nearer the North Pole than their predecessors, might not find their way across and back. Per- 

 haps this would not succeed at the first trying, because the right place would not necessarily be hit upon at 

 once. 



