The Influence of the Soil upon the COg-Tension of 

 Ereshwaters. 



Investigations in Greenland. 



The freshwaters on the Island of Disko in Greenland are 

 almost exclusively surface-waters, directly derived from the rain 

 or from the melting of the snow and ice. The obvious reason 

 for this fact is that the mean temperature of the year is below 

 and that, consequently, the ground is permanently frozen 

 from a depth of less than 1 m. downwards. The very numerous 

 rivers and brooks are of two different kinds, viz. The glacier- 

 rivers, obtaining the bulk of their water-supply from the glaciers, 

 and the ordinary rivers and brooks, depending solely on the rain, 

 the melting snow, and, certainly, to no small extent on the 

 melting of ice in the ground. The water of these last-mentioned 

 rivers is almost always perfectly clear, while the glacier-rivers 

 are extremely turbid and of a red, almost brick-red, colour, 

 caused by the enormous quantities of débris which they hold 

 in suspension and carry to the sea. Organic life is scarce in 

 the ordinary rivers and practically, perhaps absolutely, absent 

 in the glacier-rivers, though their temperature, near the mouths 

 at least, rises very nearly to that of the atmosphere. Both 

 kinds of rivers cease to flow during the winter. The height 

 of the island varies from about 700 m. in the South to 2000 m. 

 in the North, and as its area is only about 8300 sq. km. nearly 

 all the rivers have an extremely rapid current, and not a few 

 of them consist of an unbroken series of waterfalls. 



