50 EISE AND FALL OF THE GREENLAND COAST. 



The conclusions which we are forced to draw from what I have 

 said regarding the depositing-power of glacier-streams, bergs, and 

 sea-ice must he :— 1. That the bottom of Davis Strait must be com- 

 posed of various materials ; 2. That particular materials must pre- 

 dominate in particular localities ; 3. That the bottom in the vicinity 

 of ice-fjords and in fjords must be chiefly composed of clay, with 

 boulders, gravel, and earth either scattered over it or in patches ; 

 4. That the mouth and centre of Davis Strait and various banks, 

 such as Eif kol, must be chiefly composed of earth, gravel, boulders, 

 &c, with little or none of the glacier-clay ; 5. That life must not 

 be uniformly distributed through this bottom; 6. That though 

 the lines of travelled blocks, boulders rubbed by grounding bergs, 

 ice, or by being brought out as part of the moraine profonde, will 

 be found scattered over every portion of the sea, still they will 

 chiefly be found in the lines of fjords and of the iceberg-stream ; 

 6. That the clayey bottom of deep inlets will be little disturbed, 

 while that of shallow ones will be grooved and torn up by ground- 

 ing bergs, &c. 



Eise and Fall of the Greenland Coast. 



It may be asked — Have we any data for the conclusions in the 

 foregoing paragraphs, further than logical inferences from observed 

 facts justify us in drawing ? Yes, we have ; for there has been a 

 rise of the Greenland coast, laying bare the sea-bottom, as just now 

 there is a fall going on. This fact is not new ; on the contrary, it 

 is notorious, but has been much misunderstood. We have the 

 Danes telling us on the most irrefragable evidence that the coast is 

 falling, while the Americans who wintered high up in Smith Sound, 

 saw there, and in all the country they visited to the north of 

 Wolstenholme Sound, raised sea-beaches and terraces, and accord- 

 ingly say that it is rising in that direction, while, in truth, both of 

 them are right, but not in the exclusive sense they would have us 

 to imagine. There has been a rise ; there is a fall going on. "We 

 now supply the proofs. 



1. Bise. — In Smith Sound both Kane's and Hayes's expeditions 

 observed a number of raised terraces 110 feet above high tide-mark, 

 the lowest being 32 feet. These were composed of small pebbles, 

 &c. Hence they concluded that the coast was rising. I think it 

 can be easily enough shown that this is only a portion of the old 

 rise of the Greenland coast. The interval between this locality and 

 the Danish possessions, commencing at 73° N. lit., has been so little 

 examined either by the geographer or the geologist that we can 



