THE GREENLAND GLACIER 127 



aspect of the interior district of Greenland, for naturalists 

 have felt that we should there secure much valuable informa- 

 tion concerninof the conditions which existed durino- the o^lacial 

 period over a larger part of Northern Europe and North 

 America. Many travellers have ascended the ice-streams for 

 a little distance, and have looked inland apparently upon fields 

 of snow. Recently some bold travellers, properly equipped 

 for traversing the ice, made their way to the eastern shore 

 of Greenland, and started on a hazardous journey with the 

 western shore for their destination. After passing for some 

 miles over a portion of the glacier, which was much broken 

 by crevasses — due probably to the existence of irregularities 

 in the floor of rock over which it was moving — they gradually 

 ascended until they came upon a vast, unbroken surface of 

 ice, which was apparently as level as a frozen sea, and which 

 stretched away beyond the field of vision. This portion of 

 the continental glacier, the first ever seen by civilized man, 

 rose gently until, by the barometers, it apparently attained a 

 heio-ht of about a mile above the sea. Thence it declined 

 with a grade so slight as to be invisible to the eye until near 

 the western shore, when it descended more steeply, and was 

 broken by rifts, as the travellers found it at the outset of 

 their journey. 



This vast arch of ice doubtless occupies all the surface of 

 Greenland except the narrow belt next the shore, mainly on 

 the southern and western coasts, where the higher land is now 

 left bare. It would be most interesting to consider the gen- 

 eral conditions of this wonderful glacier, with reference to the 

 state of affairs during the last frozen period, for there can be 

 little doubt that we have in the region beheld by these hardy 

 explorers a very true picture of a continental ice-sheet, such as 



