164 THE LAST CEUISE OF THE MIRANDA. 



were separated by numerous nunataks, or peaks, which per- 

 petually lifted themselves above the ice, subject to the action 

 of sub-aerial erosive agencies. If the margin of Greenland 

 was ever, like that of Labrador, completely enveloped in ice, 

 so'as to be planed down to a nearly uniform level, it must 

 have been at a period preceding by an enormous interval that 

 of the glacial epoch whose evidences are now visible. 



Yet upon penetrating the interior of Greenland to a dis- 

 tance of about twenty miles, where the margin free from ice 

 is considerably wider than that, one sees before him the same 

 characteristic flowing outline of scenery as that which has been 

 described in Labrador. Instead of numerous sharp peaks, 

 there is the subdued and gracefully rounded contour which 

 would be produced by long-continued and general glaciation. 

 Here, too, the other signs of a former occupancy by ice appear 

 in increasing degree as one gets farther and farther into the in- 

 terior. The summits of the higher plateaus above 2,000 feet 

 bear the remnants of glaciers which were formerly much more 

 extensive, and which even now send occasional projecting 

 tongues of ice down to the lower levels, while frequent glaci- 

 ated boulders dot the surface after the manner with which we 

 are so familiar in the United States. But there is a remark- 

 able absence of those extensive moraines and deposits of till 

 or boulder clay which characterize the glaciated portions of 

 the United States. This absence of extensive glacial deposits, 

 characteristic alike of Labrador and of the interior portion of 

 the outskirts of Greenland, points to a common cause. 



Both Labrador and these portions of Greenland are so 

 near the sources from which the supply of glacial debris has 

 been derived, and they have been so long under the glacial 

 harrow, that all the accessible loose material has been swept 

 away to the margin, where the glacial deposits have been prin- 

 cipally made. In both cases this margin of glacial deposition 

 is covered by the sea, and hence is not visible. There can be 



