GREENLAND GLACIERS AND SEA-ICE. 27 



done much more safely and easily from the east than from the west 

 coast. It is even possible that, penetrating the country from Franz- 

 Josef or other fjord, and then taking to sledge at a favourable time 

 of the year, that the journey could be performed with comparative 

 ease, for, once arrived at the west coast, there would not be much 

 difficulty in getting succour from the Eskimo or Danish settle- 

 ments. 



I do not despair of its being done ; and if judiciously goner 

 about, I do not think the risks are greater than the problem to be 

 solved. 



3. Greenland Glaciers and Sea-Ice. 1 



Tt is difficult — if not impossible — to describe Greenland glaciers 

 without trenching on subjects of hot and, shall I say, heating contro- 

 versy. In touching again on the subject of Arctic ice-action and 

 glacial remains in Britain, I am well aware that I am risking the 

 stirring up of a hardly subsided degree of controversy most dis- 

 quieting to the peace of mind of men unwilling to enter the lists 

 of combatants. Of late years, however, the subject has received 

 new light from the hypothesis, propounded first, I believe, by 

 Agassiz, 2 that Scotland and other portions of the north of Europe 

 were at one time covered with an icy mantle, and that it \s to this, 

 and not to the agency of floating ice, that the glacial 3 markings and 

 remains so abundantly scattered over our country are due. More 

 recently still, this theory, at one time so violently opposed, has 

 been brought into almost universal favour by the publication of 

 the fact that Greenland is at this day exactly in the condition in 

 which Agassiz, reasoning on observed facts, hypothetically de- 

 scribed North Britain to have been. This new start has been 

 chiefly due to the writings of Dr. H. Eink, of Copenhagen (until 

 recently, and for many years previously, Boyal Inspector of South 

 Greenland, and now Director of the Eoyal Commerce of Greenland), 

 translated in the ' Journal of the Eoyal Geographical Society,' 4 

 though the facts were known long previously to his placing them 

 before English geographers in a clear light, Accordingly, thanks 



1 This paper is, to a great extent, reprinted from the " Physics of Arctic 

 Ice" (' Quarterly Journal of the (.eologieal Society,' vol. xxvii., 1ST I, p. (171. 



- • I'Min. New Phil. Journ.,' vol. xxxiii., p. 217; ' l'roc. Geol. See., vol. iii., 

 p. 327. 



3 1 use the word "Glacial" as expressing all relating 1o ice, on sea or land; 

 while the word glacier is, of course, used in the ordinary acceptation of the term. 



1 Vol. xxiuVp. 145 (1853); 'Proc.of Soc, vol. vii. p.76(18u3). It was also 

 described by Dr. Sutherland (from Kink) in [nglcfield's 'Summer Si arch for Sir 

 John Franklin' (1853), Appendix, p 163. 



