On Inter-Glacial Epochs. 43 
alteration in the levels of land-masses, and the consequent change 
in their character as condensers of moisture, with probably a 
change also in the direction of the oceanic currents. 
My suggestion, that it may not be necessary to connect the so- 
called inter-glacial beds with sudden changes or oscillations of 
temperature, is based upon the results of observations in Grinnell 
Land during 1875-76. 
Having been fortunate enough to pass twelve months in the 
most northern portion of the earth that civilised man has yet 
visited, a region subjected to as rigorous extremes of cold as any 
yet recorded, where the sun remains below the horizon at mid-day 
for five months, where the mean annual temperature is—3°-473, 
where a minimum of—73°'75 was registered during the month of 
March, and where for only three months of the year the mean 
temperature rises up to and above the freezing point of fresh 
water, viz. +32°455 in June; +88°356 in July; +31°-913 in 
August. I was impressed with the fact that this region is.under- 
going less glaciation than Greenland, lying twenty degrees of 
latitude to the southward in the parallel of Shetland, and differing 
remarkably from the northern part of Greenland, lying between 
the same parallels, and separated by a narrow water-way not 
twenty miles across, 
In Grinnell Land, from lat. 81°-40'N. to lat. 85°-6’ N., no glaciers 
descend to the sea, no ice-cap buries the land ; valleys from which 
the snow is in a great measure thawed during July and part of 
August stretch inland for many miles,and the peaked mountains, 
snow-clad during the greater portion of the year, in July and 
August have great portions of their flanks which rise to an altitude 
of 2,000 feet bared of snow. 
The opposite coast of Greenland presents a very different aspect 
a mer-de-gluce stretches over nearly its entire surtace, its ficrds 
are the outlets by which its great glaciers protrude into the sea. 
In Petermann Fiord the ice cap with its blue jagged edge lying 
flush with the face of the lofty clitis was estimated to be forty 
feet thick. 
When we turn to the Flora and Fauna of Grinnell Land the 
difference is equally astonishing ; some fifty or sixty flowering 
plants are found in its valleys,and between latitudes 82° and 83° 
N., I have seen tracts of land so profusely decked with the blos- 
