88 A SUMMER IN GREENLAND 



separated from the infinitely more ancient rocks 

 of which the greater part of the island is composed 

 by a valley occupied by a fairly large glacier (Fig. 

 41), on the flanks of which there are accumulated 

 masses of lateral moraines. The present snout of 

 the glacier is separated from the sea by a few 

 hundred yards of sloping ground formed by the 

 terminal moraine; but within the memory of living 

 man, so we were told, the ice reached the sea. 

 Near the glacier is a sandy beach where clumps of 

 Willow, the blue-green leaves and flowering stalks 

 of Elymus, a common dune-forming grass on the 

 coasts of Europe, and spreading colonies of the 

 succulent foliage-shoots of the Sea Purslane (Aren- 

 aria peploides) formed the nuclei of miniature sand 

 dunes. An occasional Snow Bunting, inquisitive 

 Gulls, a few brown Butterflies, and swarms of 

 aggressive Mosquitoes kept me company as I lay 

 on the sand looking across the fjord at the hills of 

 the Nugssuaq Peninsula, stretching to the west, and 

 in front of them, towards the eastern end, the 

 conical Umanak cliff (Fig. 14; the hill in line with 

 the bowsprit of the motor-boat), in shape recalling 

 the Matterhorn. When we afterwards gained a 

 nearer view of this rock, its dignified isolation 

 made a deep impression on my mind: it rises 

 almost sheer from the sea, a wall of crystalline 

 igneous rock nearly 4000 ft. high (Fig. 42). The 

 salmon-pink mass is cut across half way up the 

 precipice by a thin black band bent on itself like 

 an S lying on its side (Fig. 43), an eloquent witness 

 to the intensity of the forces which folded and 



