THE GREENLAND EXPEDITION OF 1895. 897 
itself a sufficient refutation of the idea that glacier ice is in gen- 
eral charged with débris. Extensive observation makes it cer- 
tain that so far as west Greenland is concerned, only the lower 
portion of the ice of a thick glacier contains débris. There is 
little débris above the lowermost 100 or 150 feet of ice. As 
bergs are calved from massive glaciers, their lower portions 
doubtless carry a considerable quantity of material, but this 
appears to be dropped before they have proceeded great dis- 
tances, for the bergs which are overturned or upturned rarely 
show any trace of it. On the other hand where a thin glacier 
reaches the sea, its bottom is not far from its top, the former 
being brought down nearly to the latter by melting, and the 
whole mass may be full of débris, without interfering with the 
general truth of the statement that débris does not rise any con- 
siderable distance above the bottom of the ice. From such 
glaciers only small bergs arise, and these may be well charged 
with rock rubbish from bottom to top. In spite of the possibil- 
ities in this line, and in spite of the fact that bergs from massive 
glaciers often capsize so as to bring their basal parts into view, 
rock débris on or in the Arctic bergs is yet so scarce that it 
would probably be within the limits of truth to say that not one 
berg in five hundred of those seen carried detritus of any sort, 
except dust which had been blown upon the glacier before the 
berg was detached. 
Comparing the phenomena of 1895 with those of 1894, as 
seen by Professor Chamberlin, it appears that bergs were very 
much more abundant this year than last. This is in keeping 
with the fact that the warm season seems to have come on some- 
what earlier than usual in 1895, at least in central Greenland, 
and that certain bays and fjords cleared themselves of ice some- 
what earlier than is their wont, getting their bergs well to sea at an 
unusually early date, while other bays which. often remain cov- 
ered with ice for many years in succession, thereby holding all 
bergs discharged into them, this year cleared themselves, send- 
ing all their many bergs to sea. 
Floe ice.—I\t is worthy of especial note that no trace of floe 
