634 



NA TURE 



[Oct. 30, 1879 



to one another that it was impossible to find between 

 them room for the foot, much less for a sleeping sack. . . . 

 In these holes in the ice, filled with water and in no 

 way connected with each other, Nordenskjold found 

 everywhere at the bottom of them, not only at the 

 border but in the most distant parts of the inland ice 

 which he visited, a layer some few miUiraetres thick, 

 of grey powder, often conglomerated into small round 

 balls of loose consistency. Under the microscope the 

 principal substance of this remarkable powder appeared 

 to consist of white angular translucent grains. There 

 could also be observed remains of vegetable fragments ; 

 yellow, imperfectly translucent particles, with, as it 

 -appeared, evident surfaces of cleavage, possibly felspar, 

 ^reen crystals (augite), and black opaque grains, which 

 were attracted by the magnet. ' The substance,' says 

 Nordenskjold, 'is not a clay, but a sandy trachytic 

 mineral, of a composition (especially as regards soda) 

 which indicates that it does not originate in the granite 

 •region of Greenland. Its origin appears to me, therefore, 

 ■very enigmatical. Does it come from the basalt region .-' 

 ■or from the supposed volcanic tracts in the interior of 

 Greenland ? or is it of meteoric origin ? The octahedrally 

 crystaUised magnetic particles do not contain any traces 



of nickel. As the principal ingredient corresponds to a 

 determinate chemical formula (2RSi^ -f A ISi' + H), it 

 would perhaps be desirable to enter it under a separate 

 class in the register of science ; and for that purpose I 

 propose for this substance the name Kryokonite (from 

 Kpvoi and Koi/ir). ' When I persuaded our botanist Dr. 

 Berggren, to accompany me in the journey over the ice,' 

 he continues, ' I joked with him on the singularity of a 

 botanist making an excursion into a tract, perhaps the 

 only one in the world, that was a perfect desert as 

 regards botany. This expectation was, however, not 

 confirmed. Dr. Berggren's keen eye soon discovered, 

 partly on the surface of the ice, partly in the above- 

 mentioned powder, a brown polycellular alga, which, 

 small as it is, together with the powder and certain other 

 microscopic organisms by which it is accompanied, is 

 the most dangerous enemy to the mass of ice, so many 

 thousand feet in height and hundreds miles in extent. 

 This plant has no doubt played the same part in our 

 country, and we have it to thank, perhaps, that the 

 deserts of ice which formerly covered the whole of 

 northern Europe and America have now given place to 

 shady woods and undulating cornfields. Of course a 

 great deal of the grey powder is carried down in the 



Canal in the Ice of North-East Land. 



rivers, and the blue ice at the bottom of them is not 

 unfrequently concealed by a dark dust. How rich this 

 mass is in organic matter is proved by this circumstance 

 ^imong others, that the quantity of organic matter in it was 

 sufficient to bring a large collection of the grey powder, 

 which had been carried away to a distant part of the ice 

 by several now dried-up glacier streams, into so advanced 

 a state of fermentation or putrefaction, that the mass, 

 even at a great distance, emitted a most disagreeable 

 ■smell, like that of butyric acid.' " 



The land gradually rose, and at their turning-point 

 they had reached a height of 2,200 feet above the sea. 

 During this visit to Greenland Prof. Nordenskjold made 

 some interesting observations on glaciers. " It is," he 

 says, "a common error among geologists to consider 

 the Swiss glaciers as representing on a small scale the 

 inland ice of Greenland, or the inland ice which once 

 covered Scandinavia. The real glacier bears the same 

 relation to inland ice which a rapid river or brook does 

 to an extensive and calm lake. While the glacier is in 

 perpetual motion, the inland ice, like the water of a lake, 

 is comparatively at rest, excepting at those places where 

 it streams out into the sea by vast but short glaciers. 



If one of these glaciers, through which the ice-lake falls 

 out into the sea, pass over smooth ground where the 

 bottom of the ocean gradually changes into land without 

 any steep breaks, steep precipitous glaciers are produced 

 from which indeed large ice-masses fall down, but do not 

 give rise to any real iceberg. But if the mouth of the 

 fjord be narrow, the depth of the outlying sea great, and 

 the inclination of the shore considerable, the result will 

 be one of those magnificent ice fjords which Rink so 

 admirably describes. No. II. in the diagram on p. 633 

 illustrates this more clearly. 



" True icebergs are formed only in those glaciers which 

 terminate in the manner indicated in No. II., though 

 pieces of ice of considerable dimensions may fall from a 

 steep precipice (No. I.). These various kinds of glaciers 

 occur not only in Greenland, but in other ice-covered 

 polar lands, e.g. in Spitzbcrgen, though on so much 

 smaller a scale' than in Greenland that one never meets 

 in the surrounding waters with icebergs at all comparable 

 in magnitude with those of Davis Straits. 



" In Spitzbergcn, and probably also in some parts of 

 Greenland, the ice passes into the sea, as in No. III. 



It was in this expedition that Nordenskjold obtained 



