104 



NATURE 



\yune 10, 1875 



the fjords of Greenland, the interior appears covered 

 with ice ; but there is no reason whatever to assume that 

 this appHes to the central part of the country, in which 

 one, on the contrary, just as well may assume that there 

 are high mountain chains, which protrude partly from the 

 ice." Dr. Rink, moreover, thinks the " ice-fjords point 

 out probably the rivers of the original land, now buried 

 under ice." At present any statements with regard to the 

 interior condition of Greenland must be at best conjec- 

 tural, though all we know seems to point to its being one 

 sheet of glacial ice, the main flow of the glacier being to 

 the west rather than to the east. 



The remainder of the geographical section is occupied 

 by some very valuable papers which the Society have 

 done well to reprint and put in the hands of the members 

 of the'Expedition. The paper " On the best means of reach- 

 ing the Pole," by Admiral Baron von Wrangell, is interest- 

 ing as being the first proposal to attempt to reach the 

 Pole^^by the route of Smith's Sound. The paper, moreover, 

 gives some valuable hints as to the method which ought 

 to be adopted in attempting an exploration by this route, 

 and coming as they do from one who has had so great 

 experience in Arctic exploration, they ought to be received 

 with great respect. The paper by Dr. Rink, who may 

 safely be entitled " one of the most eminent living autho- 

 rities " on many scientific subjects connected with Green- 

 land, on the discoveries of Dr. Kane, we have already 

 alluded to. While admitting the valuable contributions 

 made by Dr. Kane to our knowledge of the geography of 

 the Smith Sound route. Dr. Rink justly criticises the 

 scientific theories broached by Dr. Kane as to the interior 

 of Greenland, the "open Polar Sea," the connection 

 between the Greenland and American coasts, and other 

 points. Dr. Kane's theories are shown to have been based 

 on very insufficient data, and subsequent exploration has 

 only served to prove the justness of Dr. Rink's criticisms. 

 One of the most careful papers ifi this section is by 

 Admiral E. Irminger, of the Danish Navy, on " The 

 Arctic Current around Greenland." This paper is based 

 on a thorough examination of the log-books of a large 

 number of Danish ships sailing between Greenland and 

 Denmark. The now generally accepted conclusion he 

 reaches is that the current from the ocean around Spitz- 

 bergen, which carries so considerable masses of ice, after 

 it has passed along the east coast of Greenland, turns 

 westward and northward around Cape Farewell, without 

 detaching any branch to the south-westward, directly 

 towards the banks of Newfoundland. The current after- 

 wards runs northward along the S.W. coast of Greenland, 

 until about lat. 64° N., and at times even as far up as 67°. 

 Afterwards turning westwards, it unites with the current 

 coming from Baffin's and Hudson's Bays, running to the 

 southward on the western side of Davis Strait, along the 

 coast of Labrador, thus increasing the enormous quantity 

 of ice that is poured into the Atlantic Ocean. 



The concluding series of papersin the geographical 

 section is by Admiral CoUinson. "The full results of 

 that distinguished officer's remarkable Arctic voyage," to 

 quote the words of the preface, " have never been given 

 to the pubUc ; and both the Fellows of the Society and 

 the officers of the Arctic Expedition are to be congratu- 

 lated on having elicited so valuable an instalment. 

 Admiral CoUinson gives his notes on the state of the ice, 



and on indications of open water, from the mouth of the 

 Siberian river Kolyma, along the shores of Arctic 

 America, to Bellot Strait. He also furnishes a narrative 

 of all the expeditions that have explored the shores of 

 Arctic America, from Point Barrow to the Mackenzie 

 River, and from the Mackenzie to the Back River, in- 

 cluding his own voyage, and concludes with some general 

 observations on the ice." The contribution made by 

 Admiral CoUinson is really an elaborate one, and must 

 have cost its author much trouble. It affords insight into 

 a variety of points connected with Arctic navigation, but 

 more especially on the tides, the nature of the ice, the set 

 and rate of the currents in Behring Strait, and to the 

 east and west of that along the coasts of America and 

 Asia. 



" On the Asiatic side we have indisputable records of 

 open water continuously met with during the period of 

 lowest temperature for a distance of upwards of 1,000 

 miles. On the opposite shore the ice is driven frequently 

 during the winter by the force of the wind from the coast 

 at Point Barrow, but along the American continent to 

 the eastward the ice, as far as we are capable of judging 

 from one winter's experience, it remains quiet and im- 

 movable. Hence comes the question, Does the effect of 

 the Pacific current lose itself in the expanse of the Polar 

 Sea, or does it take an easterly trend ? So far as expe- 

 rience guides us, the positions reached by the Enterprise 

 in 1850 prove the existence of a loose pack 100 miles to 

 the north-east of Point Barrow ; beyond this, until we 

 come to the records given by Sir R. M'Clure, nothing is 

 known, but we have undoubted testimony that the pres- 

 sure on the north face of Banks Land comes from the 

 westward : and here in this strait, between Melville 

 Island and Banks Land, occurs one of those dead locks 

 in the motion of the ice that are remarkably instructive. 

 .... So far as can be gathered from the accounts given, 

 it may, I think, be assumed that the pack is looser, and 

 open spaces of water are more frequent to the north than 

 they are to the south of the Parry Group. . . . Though the 

 Pacific current is in a great measure turned aside from 

 the face of the American continent by the abrupt change in 

 the direction of the coast at Point Barrow, the testimony 

 of all navigators is conclusive that it is felt, and that an 

 easterly set pervades to a greater extent than a westerly 

 one, and that this set is more noticeable to the east of the 

 Mackenzie." 



All the papers in the second part of the Selection, 

 that on Ethnology, are valuable. Mr C. R. Mark- 

 ham contributes four papers, the first " On the Origin and 

 Migration of the Greenland Eskimo," being one of the 

 most interesting and instructive in the whole book. Mr. 

 Markham has evidently given the subject careful study, 

 and his hypotheses seem to us to be on the whole sound. 

 For three centuries after the Norse began to settle in 

 Greenland in the end of the tenth century, Mr. Markham 

 beUeves that no indigenous race was seen in the land ; 

 that all at once, about the middle of the fourteenth cen- 

 tury, a horde of Skroellings appeared in the extreme 

 northern frontier settlements of Greenland, and seem 

 rapidly to have stamped out the Norse colonists. 

 Whether this was so or not, there seem to us great proba- 

 bility in the theory of the migration of the Greenland 

 Esquimaux advanced by Mr. Markham. During the 

 centuries preceding the first reported appearance of the 

 Esquimaux in Greenland, the commotions in Central 

 Asia, under Tugrul Beg, Jenghiz Khan, and other leaders, 

 were the means of sending forth swarms of Turks and 



