CHAPTER XXI 



THE CONTINENTAL GLACIERS OF POLAR REGIONS 



The inland ice of Greenland. In Greenland and in Antarc- 

 tica the land is almost or quite buried under a cover of snow and 

 ice the so-called "inland ice" 

 which always assumes the 

 surface of a very flat dome or 

 shield. In Greenland there is 

 found a marginal ribbon of 

 land generally from five to 

 twenty-five miles in width 

 (Fig. 299), but in Antarctica 

 all the land, with the excep- 

 tion of a few mountain peaks, 

 is inwrapped in a mantle of 

 ice which is also extended upon 

 the sea in a broad shelf of snow 

 and ice. Neither of these vast 

 glaciers has been explored ex- 

 cept in its marginal portion, 

 yet such is the symmetry of 

 the profiles along the routes 

 traversed, and such the flat- 

 ness and monotony of the snow 

 surface within the margins, 

 that there is little reason to 



doubt that the profile made FIG. 299. Map of Greenland showing the 



along Nansen's route in south- 

 ern Greenland would, save only 

 for magnitude, fairly represent a section across the middle of the 

 continent (Fig. 300). 



The mountain rampart and its portals. As soon as we ex- 

 amine the coastal belt we observe that the " Great Ice " of 



271 



area of inland-ice and the routes of differ- 

 ent explorers. 



