66 HOBBS— CHARACTERISTICS OF THE [April 22, 



often buried in the mud, and later, when they have melted, they 

 leave deep pits in the plain similar to though smaller than the de- 

 pressions in a " pitted plain " from the continental glaciers of Pleis- 

 tocene time. 



During such an eruption, water has been seen to shoot up from 

 the glacier in great jets, and it has sometimes happened that the 

 entire ice mass of the jokul has been shattered, and a chaotic mass 

 of ice miles in width has slipped resistlessly down the slopes. With 

 the conclusion of the disturbance, the aspect of the entire district is 

 sometimes found to be utterly changed. All vegetation has been 

 destroyed, and ridges which had lent to the landscape its character 

 have vanished, so that streams have lost their old channels and 

 entered upon wholly different courses." 



Ice-covered Archipelago of Franz Josef Land. — The islands of 

 Franz Josef Land in the high latitude of 80° and over, with alti- 

 tudes of 2,000 to 4,000 feet and situated as they are on the borders 

 of an open sea, are the most Arctic in their aspect of all the smaller 

 northern land masses. As a consequence, they are with unimpor- 

 tant exceptions completely snow capped, the snow-ice covering slop- 

 ing regularly into the sea upon all sides. The Jackson-Harms- 

 worth* and Ziegler° expeditions, following those of Nordenskiold, 

 Nansen, the Duke of the Abruzzi, and others, have now supplied 

 us with fairly accurate maps of all islands in the archipelago. One 

 or two of the western islands alone show a narrow strip of lov/ 

 shore land, but with these exceptions all are covered save for small 

 projecting peaks or plateau edges near the ice margins (see Fig. 6). 

 They present, therefore, a unique exception to the law which other- 

 wise obtains, that within the northern hemisphere glacial caps are 

 smaller than the land areas upon which they rest. The appearance 

 of the island covers is here, however, that of neve of low density, 

 rather than of compact glacier ice. 



Prince Rudolph Island, which was the winter station of the 

 Italian polar expedition, is no doubt typical of most islands in the 



' Otto Nordenskiold, " Die Polarwelt," 1909, pp. 42-43. 



*F. G. Jackson, "A Thousand Days in the Arctic," 1899, map 5. 



^ Anthony Fiala, " The Ziegler Polar-Expedition of 1803-5," 1907, map C. 



