l; LAC!. 1 1. GIIOI.OGY OF XOR'J'If GREEXLAXD 773 



accuimilation oxer the interior would need to be enormously 

 increased before these'elevations would be overridden by the ice 

 moving out from the interior. The phenomena were such as to 

 raise the question whether snow fall and ice accumulation could 

 ever be so increased that the ice, moving from the interior to the 

 coast, would override these border elevations so long as present 

 topograj)hic relations hold. Elevations lOOO feet high in the sit- 

 uations referred to would not be smothered by ice if the ice-sheet 

 were thickened 1 000 feet, since in that event the ice-drainage 

 through the \'alleys would be greatly augmented, and would 

 draw down the level of the ice immediately adjacent. It is 

 believed that the ice-cap would need to be thickened several 

 thousand feet before the coastal regions of the island would be 

 completely covered. 



The coast of Melville Bay is now suffering more nearly unin- 

 terrupted glaciation than any other portion of the coast seen. 

 For a considerable distance east of Cape York it is true that 

 three-fourths, possibly four-fifths, of the coast line is of land- 

 ice at the present time. Yet the ice-cap lying back of Mel- 

 x'ille Bay would need to be enormously thickened in order to 

 cover the fourth or fifth of land which is now bare. 



The phenomenon of floating glacier ends, seen at several 

 points, and heretofore referred to,^ perhaps affords a clue to the 

 way in which water intervals between land masses might be 

 bridged by glacier ice, so far as they can be bridged at all. If 

 the ice of the sea, formed by the freezing of the sea water, be 

 not disrupted for long periods of time, the ends of glaciers 

 crowding out into it, not being able to break off and float away 

 as bergs, might at first float. As they advanced they might 

 thicken, and if the water be sufficiently shallow they might ulti- 

 mately rest on the bottom. With the ice of the surrounding 

 seas still remaining unbroken, the forward movement of the ice 

 from the land might urge the glacier ice in the water basin across 

 the bottom of the same, and up on the opposing land. But it 

 would seem well-nigh certain that, under the extreme conditions 



'Jour, of Geol., Vol. Ill, p. 875. 



