GLACIAL STUDIES IN GREENLAND. IX. 



With one exception — the Igloodahomyne — the glaciers 

 thus far studied have been dependencies of local ice-caps. 

 Those first sketched were connected with the snow fields of the 

 island of Disco. Those which we have just been considering 

 were offsprings of the snow-cap of the Redcliff peninsula. We 

 are now about to turn to the tongues, lobes and border of the 

 great ice mantle of Greenland. 



The order of study we have pursued has certain elements of 

 advantage that may be noted before we pass on, as it may be 

 helpful in giving significance to our further observations. The 

 local glaciers of Disco were found to present sloping borders, 

 after the usual style of southern glaciers. It would appear that 

 this mode of termination is the dominant habit of the glacial 

 border in southern Greenland, but I was not permitted to make 

 observations which justify me in asserting this, and the writings 

 of others do not seem to be sufficiently specific on this point to 

 warrant an unqualified affirmation. The glaciers of Disco have 

 much the same limitations in size as the glaciers of southern 

 alpine regions, and this may possibly give occasion for the 

 inference that the element of magnitude is a controlling one in 

 determining the marginal habit of a glacier. In view of this 

 possible appeal to magnitude as an element of interpretation, it 

 is fortunate that we have been able to study glaciers of like 

 dimensions in high latitudes. It may be safely inferred, there- 

 fore, that the differences in the verticality of the glacial margin, 

 which we have found so pronounced, and in the basal stratifica- 

 tion (if this difference really exists) are not functions of mag- 

 nitude. 



In like manner it is of some importance to know whether the 

 differences in the magnitude of the glaciers of the northern field, 

 when compared with each other, are correlated with any impor- 



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