northwest of them lie Foyn, Brook, Karl, and Seven Islands and the northeast shore of North East 

 Land, which are also devoid of ice cover. Alexander Land, which is also devoid of ice cover in its 

 northwestern part, lies east of them. 



Between Ushakov Island — an icecap island — and the northern island of Novaya Zemlya lies 

 Vize Island, which has no ice cover. The nearest parts of Franz Joseph Land and Severnaya 

 Zemlj^a archipelagos, which lie west and east of Ushakov Island, are comparatively lightly iced. 



Thus, the question arises: 

 retreated? 



are such islands relics of the last ice age, when the ice cover 



It seems unlikely to me that Greenland, for example, is a single island and not an archipelago 

 like Spitsbergen. When Greenland thaws, simultaneously with the general warming of the arctic, 

 straits will melt and waste, first of all, and Greenland itself will thus begin to separate into 

 different islands. It is natural that during this some islands will be cleared of ice the last. This 

 assumption seems to be supported by the fact that all the known icecap islands are located either in 

 archipelagos or in the center of extensive shallows. 



The great number of icebergs found near such islands is also an oblique indication of the fact 

 that the islands are in a state of destruction. The amount of precipitation (south of Franz Joseph 

 Land about 500 mm and in the north about 300 mm annually) falling on these islands cannot com- 

 pensate for the calving of icebergs. 



True, it should be pointed out that the nutritional glaciers can occur not only because of the 

 precipitation of atmospheric precipitates. Clouds consisting of extremely supercooled water drop- 

 lets, when floating over cold elevations, form rime on these elevations. The importance of rime 

 in glacial attrition is insufficiently studied, but it is known that in the Swedish Laplands, at an 

 altitude of about 2, 000 m, and in the Alps at an altitude of about 2, 000 to 3, 000 m, considerable 

 accumulations of this type of precipitation form. In the polar lands, rime can play a considerable 

 role; much more so on such isolated islands as icecap islands. However, it would still be insuffi- 

 cient to cover the expenditure of ice as a result of iceberg calving. 



LITERATURE: 62, 77. 



Figure 51. Ushakov Island. 



135 



