ARE THERE ANY MOUNTAINS IN THE INTERIOR? 23 



the sea ; but nowadays none can be seen, and as an insulating medium 

 it might as well be water. Cross over that surrounding circlet of 

 outskirting island, and we ascend to a plateau where nought can 

 be seen but ice. No fragment of stone is there — no trace of vege- 

 tation, except a trace here and there of the red snow-plant — not a 

 sight or sound of moving thing, nothing but hard glacier ice 

 stretching north and south — westward after you have lost sight of 

 the land you have crossed over, and eastward as far as the eye can 

 see. The mountains which Dalager saw in South Greenland to the 

 eastward were in all likelihood those of the East Coast, and not 

 interior mountains, for wherever else it has been penetrated into, 

 nothing but ice can be seen on the distant eastern horizon. How 

 deep this ice overlies the country it is impossible to say ; in some 

 places, I doubt not, many thousand feet. As I have already, in 

 the section on the Glaciers and Ice of Greenland, described the 

 nature of this glacial covering at some length, it is not necessary for 

 me to go into a description of it in this place. I see no reason to 

 doubt that it continues throughout the whole country, except where 

 fjords may indent it, and even then, in many cases, it is increasing 

 — it is rilling up these fjords. Dr. Eink has also discussed this 

 subject, 1 in a paper in the Danish ' Tidsskrift for populair Frem- 

 stilling af Naturvidenskab ' for October, 1870, as well as in a 

 recently published brochure. 2 



10. Are there any Mountains in the Interior f — From what I have just 

 said, it will be apparent that there are none of any extent. What- 

 ever there may have been formerly are now overlaid by an ice- 

 covering, viz., by the glacial cap forming, by the immense fall of 

 snow and the little evaporation in the cold interior, much more 

 rapidly that it can be discharged in the shape of icebergs. There 

 are no iceberg " streams " on the east coast of Greenland, and bergs 

 are rare off that coast. As soon as you leave the immediate vicinity 

 of the coast no moraine is seen coming over the inland ice, which 



1 " Om Gronlands iudland, og muligheden af at Berejse samme " [On the Interior 



of Greenland, and (he possibility of Exploring the same], No. 1) of ' Fra Vidon- 

 skabens Verden.' Copenhagen, 1875. 



2 "The whole interior of the country, indeed,'' writes Mr. James Geikie, and I 

 quote his conclusions as peculiarly bearing on the subject, " would appear to be 

 buried underneath a great depth of snow and ice, which Levels up the valleys, 



and sweeps over the hills. Tne few daring men who have tried to penetrate a 



little way from the coast, describe the scene as desolate in the extreme far as 

 the eye can reach, nothing save one dead, dreary expanse of white. No liviug 

 creature frequents this wilderness— neither bird, nor beast, nor insect— noi even a 

 solitary moss or lichen can be seen. Over everything broods a silence deep as 



death, broken only when the roaring siorni arises to sweep before it the pifcili ss 

 blinding snow." — 'The Great lee Age,' p. 5(J. 



