NEW PHYSIOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY OF GREENLAND 53 



ice fiords have incorrectly been famed for their numerous bergs. 

 Although a considerable number of bergs occur in summer in the 

 northern part of Sugar Loaf Bay and in Alison Bay east of Amdrup 

 Island, there is no very great output. My investigations in 

 Melville Bay showed that the greater part of the numerous glaciers, 

 which have come down to the sea, only produce few and small 

 bergs. An exception, however, is formed by the King Oscar 

 Glacier in the middle of Melville Bay. It is situated in the very 

 place where the coast bends almost at right angles from south to 

 west, this glacier being thus fed both from the east and the north. 

 Almost aU of the numerous bergs, which are nearly always found 

 aground on the many banks and skerries in Melville Bay, come 

 from this glacier. 



Few of the numerous glaciers in the Cape York district form 

 bergs, and those that do, only very few. The great Humboldt 

 Glacier, in spite of the great accumulations in its capacious basin, 

 moves very little and forms very few bergs, but here a fresh factor 

 comes into play, viz., the sea ice which hinders the formation of 

 icebergs. That is the reason why, practically speaking, no bergs, 

 or at any rate very few, are produced along the entire north coast 

 from the Humboldt Glacier in the west to Germaine Land on the 

 east coast. Taking this factor as our point of departure, it will be 

 possible to divide all the glaciers of west Greenland into a series of 

 types: 



1 . No bergs or very few bergs are formed. — The glacier rests on 

 land, or if it reaches the sea it moves so little that bergs are only 

 formed at long intervals. Sea ice, if found before the front of the 

 glacier, is not influenced by it, or only very slightly. Nearly all the 

 south Greenland and the majority of the north Greenland glaciers 

 from 71° to 81° N. lat. are examples. 



2. Bergs may break away daily all the year round. — The glacier 

 comes down to the sea on an open coast where no sea ice is formed 

 in winter so that there is no hindrance to the formation of bergs. 

 Of this type are the glaciers at Cape Alexander, in 78° N. lat. 



Z- At intervals of some months bergs are suddenly formed. — The 

 glacier reaches the sea in a fiord whose mouth is blocked, partly by 

 a submarine moraine and partly by icebergs which have run aground 



