Rink.] -^"^ [March 20, 



the ice-fjords according to their productiveness of icebergs or to the velocity 

 with which the inland-ice is pushed into these inlets. "We have five ice- 

 fjords of the first, four of the second, and eight of the third (least produc. 

 ti\e) class. The Norwegian geologist Helland was the first who (in 1875) 

 applied direct measurements to the actions of the ice here in question. 

 Hammer and Steenstrup have completed these investigations as regards 

 three first and one second rate fjords. They have proved that the branches 

 of the inland-ice which the sea receives in these places are pushed on inces- 

 santly at the rate of thirty to fijty feet per diem, this movement being not 

 at all influenced by the seasons. But the velocity thus found first acquires 

 its whole significance by considering the quantity of matter to which it 

 refers. The breadth of the glaciers which extend into the sea is of course 

 variable, depending on the distance between the rocks which border them. 

 In the large ice-fjords of Jakobshavn the glacier which yields the bergs 

 was 4500 ineters broad. The thickness can be estimated at a thousand feet. 

 The hulk of ice annually forced into the sea, would, if taken on shore and 

 resting on dry ground, make a mountain two miles long, tioo miles broad and 

 1000 feet high. Sliding over the bottom of the sea it maintains its coherent 

 state until the water is sufficiently deep to lift it, when it breaks and is 

 converted into floating bergs. 



Lieutenant Hammer passed the winter from 1879 to 1880 at Jakobshavn 

 for the purpose of surveying the fjord and watching the movements of the 

 ice. He visited the station again in 1883 and has written an excellent 

 monograph on this remarkable locality. By the striking results of his and 

 Steenstrup's investigations, in connection with Helland's and still earlier 

 observations as far back as 1851, we now have not only a trustworthy ex- 

 planation of the origin of icebergs, but also of the removal of boulders 

 hundreds of miles by the action of ice. A simple calculation will show 

 that while large glaciers in other parts of the world are nourished by the 

 snow falling upon a surface of perhaps twenty to thirty square miles, a 

 first-rate ice-fjord will require a tributary basin upwards of a thousand 

 times as large. For this reason the ice formed in the central regions of 

 Greenland has to travel to the ice-fjords, and sliding over an uneven 

 ground with its enormous weight it cannot avoid breaking asunder pro- 

 truding rocks and carrying the fragments imbedded in its mass. 



Can it be expected that Greenland once will be crossed from 

 WEST TO EAsroR VICE VERSA? — I am Convinced that this will be accom- 

 plished. The problem seems not to present difficulties equal to such as 

 have been encountered by expeditions in the northernmost parts of Green- 

 land. If the chief object is to penetrate as far as possible into the interior, 

 a starting point has to be selected where, if possible, no Nunataks could be 

 observed from the outer land. Nordenskjold has been the pioneer in this 

 as well as other branches of arctic research. The renowned explorer has 

 shown, on his voyages to Greenland in 1870 and 1883, how much can be 

 performed by a carefully planned use of an Arctic summer. His excur- 



