GLACIAL STUDIES IN GREENLAND. 679 
vated from ten feet upwards that was much older. It was very 
notably weathered and covered with vegetation in the scanty 
fashion of the region. In particular the bowlders were covered 
with lichens and were roughened and exfoliated by weathering 
in a way that indicated considerable antiquity. While com- 
parisons with southern latitudes are liable to error because of the 
different climatic conditions, it may give some impression of the 
evidence of aging in the present case to compare these weathered 
and lichen-covered bowlders with the ruins of medieval ages. 
Very possibly, however, they may not exceed a century in age, 
or even reach that. This older terrace extended to within 100 
feet of the present edge of the ice, indeed, at the southeastern 
curve of the glacier where it turned away from the side of the 
valley, there was, little more than room for the talus slope and 
the lateral drainage stream between the ice and the old valley 
débris. In harmony with this evidence, the talus slope of the 
valley cliffs on the south side, for the most part, was ancient, 
although somewhat disturbed and freshened at some points near 
the ice. It would appear, therefore, clear that the glacier has 
not, within recent times, advanced notably beyond its present 
position. It may, of course, have been advancing from some 
point of greater retreat,and may be even now advancing. The 
sharpness of the talus slope and the fact that it is no greater than 
it is, is best explained by supposing that the glacier is advancing 
with exceeding slowness upon the débris which is gradually 
accumulating at its front. 
The Gnome Glacier. This is a smaller glacier occupying a 
narrower valley. It is only about 1800 feet wide, measured at 
a point above the terminal slope, according to Lieutenant Peary. 
It is closely beset with walls of gneiss on either hand, but judg- 
ing from the erratics which it carries it reaches back to the sand- 
stone series. Red sandstone covers the cliff on the north. The 
plateau on either side of the valley in which the Gnome glacier 
lies is capped with a thin stratum of ice, which, at some points, 
creeps out to the edge of the plateau, from which it falls in 
broken masses or extends itself downward in little hanging 
