September 2, 1910] 



SCIENCE 



309 



Polarwelt " is a book which will well repay 

 close study by all glaciologists and polar trav- 

 elers, and it is to be hoped that Dr. Norden- 

 skjold will enlarge it in another edition, as it 

 is full of fresh thoughts and valuable compari- 

 sons, in many cases only too briefly expressed. 



Dr. Nordenskjold begins with a study of 

 Greenland, a portion of the eastern shores of 

 which he has himself explored. Although 

 little is known of the interior, yet this seems 

 to be almost entirely covered with an inland 

 ice cap, some two million square kilometers in 

 extent. In the south the ice cap reaches the 

 sea only in a few places, but where this takes 

 place in the fiords, the ice advances with great 

 velocity. In the north the ice cap, as along 

 Melville Bay, extends along the shore as an 

 ice wall. In former years the glaciation was 

 much more extensive than now, as its traces 

 are found on all exposed spots. On the east- 

 ern coast of Greenland north of Scoresby 

 Sound is a district of about 5,000 square kilo- 

 meters, called Jameson Land, which was ex- 

 plored by Nordenskjold himself. It is a stony, 

 sandy and mossy plateau, on which there is 

 no ice cap nor any glaciers. And as a result, 

 polar life is specially abundant, and troops of 

 musk oxen, countless lemmings, and an oc- 

 casional wolf were seen. A good part of 

 Greenland seems to be formed of gneiss, and 

 to-day there is no trace of volcanic activity. 

 But in some places, especially in the east, ba- 

 saltic lava has broken through and overflowed 

 the gneiss, and it seems probable that these 

 lavas belong to the same formation as those in 

 Iceland, the Faroes, Scotland and Ireland 

 and that at one time Greenland was joined to 

 Europe. The most noteworthy attribute of 

 the climate is that it changes with extreme 

 rapidity, in accord with the winds, and when 

 this blows from the land, the temperature rises 

 on the coast. Of the Eskimos, Dr. Norden- 

 skjold has a high opinion, and he is inclined to 

 think that their main original habitat was in 

 the lands west of Hudson Bay and that they 

 spread from there. 



Iceland is the center of a great volcanic 

 area, which extended from Greenland to Ire- 

 land, Scotland and the Faroes. This volcanic 



activity began in the early Tertiary, and has 

 gradually died out, except in Iceland. Jan 

 Mayen Island, for instance, is entirely vol- 

 canic and the craters of the mountains show 

 the activity has only stopped recently. Ice- 

 land is much smaller than formerly. It may 

 be looked on as a high plateau, contorted by 

 volcanic forces and smoothed down by former 

 glaciation, of which there are many traces. 

 Possibly there were several glacial periods and 

 to-day a portion of Iceland is still under an 

 ice cap. At one time the climate was quite 

 mild; now it is oceanic, relatively warm in 

 winter and cold in summer, stormy, damp and 

 foggy. 



Spitzbergen in the main is mountainous, 

 but in places it is almost a level plateau. The 

 mountains are not very high and many fiords 

 cut deeply into the islands. There is much 

 ice and many glaciers, but nothing that can 

 be considered a true ice cap. There is quite 

 an abundant vegetation. And this is a point 

 of difference with Franz Josef Land, an archi- 

 pelago with many of the characteristics of 

 Spitzbergen, but much more arctic, since while 

 Spitzbergen has 125 varieties of plants, Franz 

 Josef Land has only 14. Coal has been found 

 in Spitzbergen, and mining is already weU 

 started, and taken in connection with an in- 

 creasing summer tourist inroad, it seems as if 

 Spitzbergen might become in time a semi- 

 civilized region. 



Bear Island is interesting as an example of 

 a rather rare geological occurrence. It con- 

 sists of 400 to 500 meters high land in the 

 south, sloping off gently to the north. It is 

 largely covered with masses of broken stones 

 and dirt, which fall into long streaks or broad 

 lines. While these formations are not defi- 

 nitely explained as yet, it would seem as 

 though the frost and ice broke up the rock in 

 the higher land, and that water and rains 

 then washed it down to the lower levels. 



About Antarctica, Dr. Nordenskjijld de- 

 pends largely on his own observations. He is 

 in doubt whether East Antarctica and West 

 Antarctica form one mass or whether they are 

 separate. He thinks that the coasts running 

 from north to south are much less ice covered 



