GLACIAL OBSERVATIONS. 169 



streams which had doubtless borne them along from the 

 distant interior. With so large a moraine upon the ice one 

 would expect to find corresponding moraines in the area from 

 which the ice had melted off; but their absence is readily 

 accounted for by the great depth of the fiord, and from the 

 fact that the moraine was very nearly in the middle of the 

 glacier, which was here about five mile wide. The fiord is 

 capacious enough to swallow all the material which the glacier 

 has vomited into it. 



Some years ago, when Nordenskiold visited the inland ice, 

 a good deal was said about the dust which he found scattered 

 over the surface, and which he surmised might be of meteoric 

 origin. Dr. Hoist, however, found similar material collected 

 in considerable thickness over the margin of the ice all along 

 southern Greenland, and ascertained, upon analysis, that it 

 was simply dust blown from the mountains to the outskirts, 

 thus furnishing a more prosaic explanation of the phe- 

 nomenon. The fact that Nansen found nothing like kryo- 

 konite in the interior of Greenland confirms the conclu- 

 sion of Ilolst, as did our own observations upon the Ikamiut 

 glacier, which was covered with this dust, as we estimated, to 

 a depth of a quarter of an inch, while in places it had been 

 washed into hollows of the ice, filling them up to a depth of 

 several inches. 



Another evidence of the former extension of the glaciers 

 to the margin of the ocean appeared in numerous light-col- 

 ored granite boulders found at Sukkertoppen and other places, 

 where the rocks were of an entirely different character. 



One of the most puzzling things in southern Greenland is 

 the existence of the reindeer ; for it is difficult to see how the 

 animal could reach those grazing-grounds under present con- 

 ditions. It is not known that these animals make extensive 

 journeys on the inland ice, or, indeed, that they venture upon 

 it at all. Yet this projection of the inland ice that comes 



