220 A. S. PACKARD, Jr., ON THE GLACIAL PHENOMENA 



summit and sides of the mountain present few steep precipices. I speak comparatively 

 only, and in reference exclusively to Northern Labrador. Yet, scattered helter-skelter over 

 all, and piled up in endless number, the whole surface is covered with such loose rocks. 

 The difficulties of locomotion may readily be conceived. In scarcely a single instance did 

 we see the gneiss beds still in situ, and in only one or two exceptions some giant wedge 

 seemed to have driven them asunder. Yet none of the blocks were rounded. Attrition 

 of no kind had influenced them to any perceptible extent, neither had atmospheric in- 

 fluences altered the color, hardness and composition of their exteriors ; it was simply a 

 wilderness of unchanged blocks of the gray gneiss. 



" There was a puzzle. Whence came these broken rocks ? There was no higher spot 

 whence they might have fallen. The slight protrusion of the uptilted beds of gneiss in 

 situ, to which I have referred, alone seems to have been permitted to remain for the purpose 

 of instructing us. Clearly, that force which had riven its beds asunder, no other than the 

 frost, had broken the rest from their foothold and prepared them for removal by another 

 coming into play at a later season ; the thawing down-gliding snow. Many of the blocks were 

 probably but slightly removed from their original position, perhaps barely turned over or 

 merely forced a little out of place. Yet the effect to the eye of the beholder would be as 

 great as if they had been transported hundreds of miles. 



" When we descended from the mountain we crossed over a broad patch of snow, deeply 

 packed, (twenty feet deep,) which clearly taught us how the blocks were moved. In truth, 

 this was a miniature glaciei", and a regular moraine was piled up along its edges. It is 

 impossible for us to form any estimate of the amount of snow which may fall per square 

 foot in a winter, but from the fact that such quantities were still remaining late in July, 

 and certainly they never altogether thaw away, we may reasonably infer that during its 

 downward progress, either as snow or water, a tremendous force must be exerted, a force 

 quite sufficient to account for the characteristic surface phenomenon just described." 1 



Contrary to the statement of Sir John Richardson in his "Polar Regions," both the 

 accounts of Parry and the earlier arctic voyagers, and especially C. F. Hall in his " Arctic 

 Researches," prove that on the northern edge of the American continent, and as low down 

 as lat. 62°, and upon land rising between 1000 and 2000 feet above the level of the sea, 

 there is a mer de glace of vast extent, discharging glaciers into the sea which present ice- 

 fronts 100 feet high. 



Parry, in his second voyage, (p. 12), states that on the north side of Hudson's Straits, 

 after passing by Resolution Island, there "is a smooth part of the land rather higher than 

 that in its neighborhood, and for an extent of one or two miles, completely covered with 

 snow. The snow remains upon it, as Mr. Davidson informed us, the whole summer, as they 

 find the land presenting the same appearance on their return through the Strait in the 

 summer. This circumstance, which has obtained for it the name of 'Terra Nivea ' upon the 

 charts, I do not know how to account for, as the height of the land above the level of the 

 sea cannot certainly exceed a thousand feet." 



Mr. C. F. Hall, during his residence in Frobisher's Bay, had excellent opportunities of 

 observing during all seasons of the year both ends of the Kingaite range of mountains on 

 ' Meta Incognita' which support this mer de glace, which he named the Grinnell Glacier, 

 and which on the coast annually discharges icebergs from its streams. He describes it as 

 being two miles long, starting from a sea of ice which extended many miles N. W. and 



• Loc. cit., p. 406. 



