74 MARIOX EXPEDITION TO DAVIS STRAIT AND BAFFIN BAY 



bergs are held near their sources by intricate coastal cachnients, and 

 secondly, those that do escape seldom, if ever, drift so deeply into 

 lower latitudes that they attain the more populated tracks of ships. 

 There are also some basic differences in the ice line of the two coasts. 

 The inland ice crowds closer to the sea along the southern half of the 

 east coast than it does along the west; on the other hand, the east 

 coast north of the seventieth parallel exhibits a wider land fringe 

 than does the other side in the same latitude. 



The largest and most productive glacier in east Greenland is said 

 to issue from Kangerdlugssuak Fjord, near latitude 68' N.. but the 

 size and the ntmiber of icebergs it produces is unknown. Garde 

 (1889, p. 228) lists the six most productive glaciers south of parallel 

 66 north, i. e., Angmagssalik, on the east coast as follows: Sermilik, 

 Ikerssuak, Pikiutdlek, Igdlutarssidc, Tingmiarmiut, and Anoritok. 

 Here again there are no data on the annual volume of discharge or 

 the number of icebergs. All the glaciers between Kangerdlugssuak 

 Glacier and Germania Land, a distance of over 500 miles, according 

 to Kayser (1928, p. 414) terminate at the head of deep fjords. Many 

 glaciers in Scoresby Sound jjroduce massive box-shaped icebergs, but 

 the shallow threshold across the fjord mouths imprison many 

 and few escape to sea. North of Hudson Land and the seventy- 

 fourth parallel the rate of marginal discharge of the galcial ice de- 

 creases rapidly partly on account of the slower movement of the 

 inland ice and partly on account of the sea ice, sealing the glacier 

 front. The interiors of some of the larger fjords, however, protected 

 from the direct force of the pack, open up regularly every sununer, 

 and many icebergs break away from the glacier fronts. There is, 

 nevertheless, only one glacier of this character in the northeast sector 

 which rivals the production of the greater glaciers of the west coast, 

 namely, Storstromen Glacier, in Dove Bay. The most active berg 

 glaciers are well distributed along the coast from Cape Billie, latitude 

 62^ 10'. to Scoresby Sound, in 70°, while northward the productivity 

 markedly decreases. Apparently there is little difference in the total 

 annual volume of discharge between the east and west coasts (7,500 

 bergs from the west coast), but the closer blockade of sea ice in the 

 east greatly diminishes the berg supply to the Atlantic. 



Drift and Distribution of East Greenland Bergs 



The general drift of the icebergs from their source is southwest- 

 ward along the coast to Cape Farewell, and the bergs may drift as 

 far northward around the latter as Godthaab, just as the pack ice 

 does. Those which remain out in the current along the continental 

 edge travel the fastest, but vary in speed with the week-to-week or 

 even the day-to-day pulsations of the current.^" East Greenland bergs 

 gather in greatest numbers during the summer: off Cape Farewell 

 several hundred having been reported in sight of a ship at one time. 

 The pack ice tends to hold them off the coast, but the effect of the 

 earth rotation being in the opposite direction keeps them from spread- 

 ing out to the Xorth Atlantic. The van of liergs arrives at Cape 



*^ Nielsen (1928, p. 22G) states that the polar current on the continental side of the 

 Greenland Sea is 10 to 14 miles per day, while closer in to the coast it is only half as 

 great. Summer velocities are >;reater than winler ones. In autumn off Angmagssalik a 

 speed of 5 to 16 miles per day has lieen recorded. 



