THE GREENLAND EXPEDITION OF 1895. 887 
ing the rise in the snow line, though the association may be no 
more than accidental, the glaciers take on a somewhat different 
aspect. In general they are narrower, thicker, more arched in 
cross section, more extensively fractured, and, most striking of 
all, have, as a rule, vertical sides and ends. Furthermore, their 
surfaces are much more likely to carry débris along their lateral 
margins and across their ends, wherever the ends are not more 
than 150 feet or so thick. These features characterize most of the 
glaciers seen on the Greenland coast north of latitude 76°. It is 
true that there are occasional glaciers within this distance which 
fail to show these characteristics, but they are so rare as to be 
conspicuous. Thus on the south side of Whale Sound there is a 
single glacier which has neither vertical sides nor end, although 
these features are possessed by all the other ice streams on this 
shore of the Sound. An adequate explanation of this very strik- 
ing difference in the behavior of the Greenland glaciers north of 
Cape York and those east and south of that point has not yet 
been suggested. Such opportunity as was afforded for the 
detailed study of glaciers was principally within the region where 
vertical slopes abound. 
North of Cape York there is a type of glacier so common as 
to deserve especial mention. On its seaward margin the upland 
often terminates abruptly, and from its edge a steep slope 
descends to the water. The uppermost part of this cliff face, 
just below the outer edge of the upland is often nearly vertical 
for ashort distance. The junction of the vertical, or nearly vertical, 
face with the less steep talus slope below, is often the site of great 
accumulations of snow, drifted thither by the wind blowing from 
the plateau. These accumulations are not usually continuous 
for any considerable distance horizontally, but rather are 
gathered in patches wherever the topography favors lodgment. 
The patches of snow in these situations have in many cases 
become so considerable as to give rise to little glaciers. They 
do not usually descend more than a hundred feet below the 
snow fields which support them, but their glacier character is 
unmistakable. 
