GLACIATION OF THE CIRCUMPOLAR REGION. 309 



tember When the rigour of the cUmate of Arctic America is con- 

 sidered, the under Hmit of permanent snow on the hills appears to be very 

 elevated."* 



To the same effect is the testimony of Sir Edward Belcher in regard to 

 the glacial condition of the land about Northumberland Sound, his winter- 

 quarters in 1852 - 53. He says : " No bergs are to be seen in these seas. 

 .... Vegetation in the great belt of this island [Exmouth Island, lat. IT. 15'] 

 appeared to be more luxuriant than we have elsewhere witnessed in this 



region These are nof invariably, even in winter, "■ snow-clad ' regions. 



Grave Mountain, 1,400 feet high, in latitude 76° 23', had no snow on it in 

 May, 1853. The hills are never 'snow-clad'; the fall of a few days is 

 dispersed in a few hours, and the last gale preceding actual winter puts an 

 end to heavy foils of snow, by reason of extraordinarily low temperatures."! 



As there are no glaciers and no permanent snow on the northern coast of 

 America, or on the islands adjacent, so there are none in the corresponding 

 parts of Asia. The whole coast of Siberia, of which the Taimyr Peninsula 

 reaches at its most northern point nearly the latitude of the southern edge 

 of Spitzbergen, is also destitute of glaciers. Middendorff says that he 

 reached, in Taimyr Land, the latitude of 75^°, and found there unexpectedly 

 a reo-ion of continuous mountains which although a thousand feet in eleva- 

 tion were not covered with snow.l This condition of things on the Siberian 

 coast is corroborated by Nordenskjfild, who says, in writing of the low part 

 of Nova Zembla : " There are no true glaciers here, nor any erratic blocks, 

 to show that circumstances were difierent in former times It is there- 

 fore possible at a certain season of the j^ear (during the whole of the month 

 of August) to sail from Norway to Novaya Zemlya, make sporting excursions 

 there, and return without having seen a trace of ice or snow."§ Fai'ther on, 

 he remarks when speaking of the group of the New Siberian i.slands : " All 

 was now clear of snow [the month was August or September] with the ex- 

 ception of a few of the deeper clefts between the mountains. No traces of 

 glaciers were visible, not even such small collections of ice as are to be found 

 everywhere on Spitzbergen where the land rises a few hundred feet above 

 the surface of the sea. Nor, to judge by the appearance of the hills, have 



* 1. c, Vol. II. pp. 212-215. 



t The above are quot;itions from the " Last of the Arctic Voyages," 2 vols., I-nnilon, 1855. 



* Quoted by Payer, in Die Oesterreichische-Ungarische yordpol-Expedition, Wicii, 1877, p. 563. 

 § The Voyage of the Vega around Asia and Europe, English edition, London, ISSl. Vol. I. p. 73. 



