734 H. M. BANNISTER 
inclined valley from the great Greenland ice-cap, the nearest 
analogue to the immense glaciers of the drift period with which 
we have at present any satisfactory acquaintance. These rapid 
flowing glaciers are exceptional in Greenland, where the general 
movement of the ice is unquestionably very slow. They can be 
compared to rapids at the outlet of a lake. The Greenland ice- 
cap far overtops the bordering mountains, and yet in only some 
seventeen places along the whole Danish Greenland coast are 
there free outflows to the sea. While we know less of the other 
portions of the coast the general character is the same; a rapid 
motion is exceptional and it is a reasonable certainty —to quote 
Taylor’ whose paper contains the latest discussion on this ice motion 
—‘‘that the average movement of that portion of the border of 
the Greenland ice-cap that rests upon the land is extremely small. 
Of that portion which ends in the sca only a small fraction has 
a high rate of motion, as is shown by the lack of activity in the 
discharge of icebergs. When it is considered that the land 
border is very much greater than the sea border, and that of the 
sea border a portion has a relatively slow movement, it will be 
evident that the average rate of movement of the great ice-sheet 
of Greenland cannot be high; and the average rate of this border 
is the nearest available analogue to the border movement of the 
still more extended periphery of the ancient American or Lauren- 
tide glacier.” 
In fact it is impossible, when we consider that the Greenland 
ice-cap only abuts on the sea along a small portion of its border 
in the form of glacial tongues, and that the average movement 
of these is so small, not to believe that towards its interior the 
ice movement must be almost imperceptible—almost if not 
absolute stagnation. The Antarctic ice-cap is very little known 
to us, but its movement must also be very slow, judging from 
the discharge of icebergs. All the icebergs of the North Atlantic 
come practically from a few Greenland glaciers, making up 
altogether only a minute fraction of the whole Greenland coast. 
In the Antarctic, on the other hand, we know of hundreds of 
tJourR. GEOL. Vol. V, 442, 1897, 
