GLACIAL STUDIES IN GREENLAND. 773 



those features in which students of American and European 

 drift are most interested, if, instead of beginning our study 

 here, we start at the sea level and follow up the valley until we 

 reach the ends of the present glaciers, as we shall thus see the 

 work formerly done by the once more extensive ice. 



The gneissic rocks at the sea level, especially those that sur- 

 round the harbor of Godhaven and stand out somewhat from 

 the bluffs, are thoroughly smoothed after the well-known fash- 

 ion of glaciers. They are so well subdued as to constitute an 

 aggregation of fairly well-formed roches moiitonnees. The ice 

 movement, was here from the eastward, not from the overhang- 

 ing ice-crowned cliffs to the north. In other words, the line of 

 motion was tangent to the southern shore of the island, not nor- 

 mal to it. Extremely little drift or debris of any kind has been 

 left upon the surface here. There is abundant evidence of 

 "plucking," and numerous little basins cover the low peninsula 

 south of the harbor, but the material so derived was almost 

 wholly borne away. The principal part of what remains is of 

 the same nature as the rock on which it rests, and hence the 

 erratic material gives us little aid in determining whether the ice 

 movement which wrought upon the surface came down from the 

 interior of the island through Blase Dale, as far as its mouth, 

 and then turned westward at right angles, and crossed this low 

 outlying hook, or whether the movement was part of a more 

 general one from the eastward, caused by a former extension of 

 the great inland ice cap of Greenland, which now has its border 

 some fifty miles to the east. The latter seems to be much the 

 more probable hypothesis, for reasons that will appear later. 



On entering the mouth of Blase Dale, it is remarkable that 

 the drift is found to be very scant. This can be attributed to 

 no inability of the valley to retain drift, for its slopes are suffi- 

 ciently gentle and its streams sufficiently confined to definite 

 channels to permit the retention of drift if it were ever lodged 

 there. Nor can it be attributed to any uncertainty of observa- 

 tion, for the surface is essentially bare. Occasional clumps of 

 willows occur, mosses are somewhat abundant, and there are not 



