Apeil 17, 1896.] 



SCIENCE. 



599 



Greenland, Labrador and the whole northern 

 regions were drawn by him; and he has restated 

 his views respecting the causes of the cold. 



Greenland has an area of 680,000 square 

 miles, of which 575,000 are occupied by the ice 

 sheet. On the east side the coast consists very 

 largely of ice cliffs, while on the west there is 

 a border of habitable land towards twenty 

 miles in width for more than half its length, 

 and numerous glaciers cross this belt, reaching 

 the sea and discharging icebergs therein. The 

 edge of the ice is usually from 1,500 to 2,000 

 feet above the sea, quite precipitous; and thence 

 the ice surface gradually rises to the altitude of 

 8,000 to 9,000 feet on the watershed, the whole 

 surface being inclined westerljr, at first six and 

 later two degrees, till the summit is reached 

 and the slope becomes easterly. Hayes called 

 the interior ' a vast frozen Sahara immeasur- 

 able to the human eye.' Near the boundary, 

 because of the greater ablation, the surface is 

 crevassed and rivers flow freely, occasionally 

 plunging into the abysses. The great central 

 region is the analogue of the neve fields or 

 gathering ground of the ice. 



Areas of considerable altitude uncovered by 

 ice or snow and hence bare rock or earth capable 

 of sustaining vegetation like the Alpine garden 

 of the Mer de Glace, in Switzerland, are called 

 nunatakr (singular nunatak) by the natives. 

 This word supplies a needed place in our vocabu- 

 lary, and is being extensively used by glacialists. 



The most important inland expeditions were 

 those of Dr. Hayes, in Lat. 78°, 1860 ; Norden- 

 skiold, in 1881, Lat. 68° ; Nansen, 1888, in Lat. 

 64°, and of Peary, 1892, Lat. 78° to 82°. The 

 last two only went entirely across the island. 

 Nansen found that the kryokonite, described by 

 Nordenskiold, as cosmic dust was rather to be 

 regarded as material blown by the winds from 

 the coast. Peary's trip was of the most conse- 

 quence, as it was the farthest north and practi- 

 cally two routes, as the return road lay a hun- 

 dred miles nearer the pole. 



The notices of processions of icebergs and 

 flows help to the understanding of the effects 

 produced by floating ice, which are liable to be 

 depreciated in these days when the glacier is in- 

 voked as the great agent at work. The bergs 

 off the Labrador coast constitute a stream one 



hundred miles wide and one thousand miles 

 long, derived chiefly from the north part of 

 Greenland. Numerous seals accompany them, 

 finding the conditions favorable for procuring 

 food and for rearing their young. Their num- 

 ber is given as hundreds of thousands. In their 

 train follow the Arctic bear, fox and innu- 

 merable flocks of birds, all dependent ultimately 

 upon the food which the seals secure from the 

 sea. Their worst enemy is man, and as the 

 number of hunters has increased, with weapons 

 terribly destructive, the products are diminish- 

 ing in amount, so that the late financial collapse 

 of Newfoundland is partially due to the poor 

 success of the sealers. 



A more important stream of floating ice is 

 that which starts in the frozen seas north of Si- 

 beria, passes by the pole, skirts the east coast 

 of Greenland and partially turns to the north- 

 west at Cape Farewell. This procession com- 

 mences late in January, as seen in southern 

 Greenland, and continues into September. In- 

 termingled with the ice are pieces of floodwood, 

 which furnish the Greenlanders with lumber 

 and firewood. Sometimes logs sixty feet in 

 length are drifted upon the shore. Rink con- 

 jectures that the annual gleanings upon the 

 whole coast may amount to from eighty to one 

 hundred and twenty cords, a small part of which 

 passes 68° N. Lat. This wood seems to have 

 grown upon the banks of rivers in Siberia, being 

 coniferous, and thus is unlike that drifted to the 

 shores of northern Europe by the Gulf Stream. 

 Freshets carry the logs far out into the Arctic 

 sea, where they are drawn into a slow but steady 

 current, which first sets to the northward from 

 the northern coast of Asia and from Spitzbergen, 

 and then passing on southwards conducts the 

 ice floes of that region along the eastern coast of 

 Greenland. It is to this current that Nansen has 

 committed himself, confidently expecting to be 

 carried past the north pole. Mr. Upham's 

 map shows very clearly this projected route from 

 Bennett's island or from the gulf of the Ob 

 across to Greenland. 



The story is well told of the Tertiary warm 

 temperate plants of Greenland, so allied to the 

 similar remains found upon both continents as 

 to necessitate the belief of an early land con- 

 nection between Europe and America. The 



