CLXX¥ 
TREES. 
Icre-BLinck. 
TIDES: 
N EW: G Re 26 aN EVA, END: 
in different maps bear different names, and in one are even confolidated ; fo little 
are thefe parts known *. 
Todefcribe Greenland, would be to ring changes on ice, and fnow, and lofty 
mountains (fome, according to Mr. Crantz, a thoufand fathoms high) rifing into 
broken crags or fharp fpires, or vallies with no other garniture than mofs and 
fome moor grafs ; and in fome parts are long flat mountains, clad with perpetual 
ice and fnow. Where the birds, by their dung, have formed a little foil, fome 
plants are found. Mr. Crantz + enumerates about twenty-four {pecies, befides 
the cryptogamious kinds, Lgede obferved, in lat, 60 or 61, {mall Junipers, 
Willows, and Birch; the laft two or three yards high, and as thick as a man’s 
leg {; an amazing tree for this country. Davis alfo faw fome low Birch and 
Willows as high as about lat.65§. Nature here fuffers the reverfe of meliora- 
tion; the g/acieres conftantly gain on the vallies, and deftroy all hopes of im- 
provement. That amazing glaciere, the Ice Blinck or Ice Glance, on the weftern 
coaft, is admirably defcribed by Mr. Crantz. I muft refer to him for the account, 
after faying, that it is a ftupendous aggregate at the mouth of an inlet, and of an 
amazing height; the brilliancy of which appears like a glory to the navigators at 
many leagues diftance. It forms, beneath, a feries of moft magnificent arches, extend- 
ing eight leagues in length, and two in breadth; through thefe are carried, at the 
ebb of tide, great fragments of ice, which have fallen from various icebergs, and 
prove one fupply to the ocean of its floating ice ||. The ftreights, now obftruéted to 
navigation, are fuppofed to be open at bottom, by arches fimilar to thofe fpoken 
of ; for an immenfe quantity of ice is annually difcharged from their mouths **. 
I have mentioned the iflands of ice at p. Lxxxv; for thofe of Spitzbergen have 
every thing in common with thofe of Greenland. Perhaps the colors in the laft 
may be more brilliant; the green being as high as that of the emerald, the 
blue equal to that of the fapphir; the firft, Mr. Fede attributes to the conge- 
lation of frefh, the latter to that of falt-water,t+. Here are frequent inftances of 
the freezing of the fea-water. The froft often forms a pavement of ice from ifland 
to ifland, and in the confined inlets ft. 
The tides rife at the fouth of this country three fathoms, in Jat 65; on the weft 
fide two, or in fpring-tides three ; at Di/co, about lat. 69, only one; further 
north it finks even to one foot. In great fpring-tides, efpecially in winter, is 
this ftrange phenomenon: fprings of frefh-water are forced up on the fhores in 
places where they were before unknown §§. 
* Collate Mr. Middleton’s map, and others, + Vol. i. 60. { Hift. Greenl. 
§ Hacklyyt. iii. 101, | Crantz. i. 21 to 24. ** Same, 19. tt Egede, 55. 
ti Crantz, i. 43. §§ Same, 41. 
During 
