igio.] 



INLAND-ICE OF THE ARCTIC REGIONS. 



10^ 



There is, however, yet another marked parallel between the snow 

 waste and the sand desert. It is the importance of wind as a trans- 

 porting agent. In his shorter acquaintance with southern Green- 

 land Nansen was less impressed with this, but he has explained 

 the secondary snow ridges upon the marginal terraces of the 

 inland-ice as wind accumulations."* These long parallel ranges 

 of snow drift thus correspond to the similar ranges of sand dunes 



Fig. 30. On the Sahara of Snow (after Peary). 



which sometimes throughout a width of many miles hem in the 

 deserts of lower latitudes. In northern Greenland Peary's observa- 

 tions have a special value. He says :"^ 



There is one thing of especial interest to the glacialist — the transporta- 

 tion of snow on the ice-cap by the wind. . . . 



The opinion has been forced upon me that the wind, with its transport- 

 ing effect upon the loose snow of the ice-cap, must be counted as one of the 

 most potent factors in preventing the increase in height of the ice-cap — a 

 factor equal perhaps to the combined effects of evaporation, littoral and 

 subglacial melting, and glacial discharge. I have walked for days in an 

 incessant sibilant drift of flying snow, rising to the height of the knees, 



'* ]Mohn u. Nansen, /. c, p. 78. 

 " Gcogr. Jour., I. c, pp. 233-234. 



