41 G Transactions. — Geology. 



incognita, for altliougli it has never been and pi'obably never will be traversed, 

 yet enough is known to leave us in little doubt .as to the general character of 

 these unvisited desolations. The western shores of Greenland have been 

 traced northward from Cape Farewell, in the latitude of the Shetland Islands, 

 to beyond the eightieth parallel. The eastern and north-eastern coasts have 

 not been so continuously followed, but our knowledge of these has been 

 considerably increased during recent years, thanks to the exertions of German 

 and Swedish geographers. The superficial area of Greenland cannot be less 

 than 750,000 square miles, so that the country is almost continental in its 

 dimensions. Of this great region only a little strip, extending to 74° north 

 latitude, along the western shore is sparsely colonised ; all the rest is a bleak 

 wilderness of snow and ice and rock. The coasts are deeply indented with 

 numerous bays and fiords, or firths, which, when traced inland, are almost 

 invariably found to terminate against glaciers. Thick ice frequently appears 

 too, crowning the exposed sea clifiTs, from the edges of which it droops in 

 tongue-like and stalactitic projections, until its own weight forces it to break 

 away and topple down the precipices into the sea. The whole interior of the 

 country, indeed, would appear to be buried underneath a great depth of snow 

 and ice, which levels up the valleys and sweeps over the hills. The few daring 

 men who have tried to penetrate a little way inland from the coast, describe 

 the scene as desolate in the extreme — far as eye can reach nothing save one 

 dead, dreary expanse of white. No living creature frequents this wilderness 

 — neither bird, nor beast, nor insect — not even a solitary moss or lichen can 

 be seen. Over everything broods a silence deep as death, broken only when 

 the roaring storm arises to sweep before it pitiless blinding snow." 



As regards the antartic lands, Mr. Geikie says, at page 101 of the same 

 work : — 



" Sir J. C. Ross' striking account of the mighty ice sheet under which the 

 Antarctic Continent lies buried, gives one a very good notion of the kind of 

 appearance which the skirts of our own ice sBeet presented. After reaching 

 the highest southern latitude which has yet been attained, all his attempts to 

 penetrate further were frustrated by a precipitous wall of ice that rose out of 

 the water to a height of 180 feet in places, and effectually barred all progress 

 towards the pole. For 450 miles he sailed in front of this clifl?*, and found it 

 unbroken by a single inlet. While thus coasting along, his ships (the Erebus 

 and Terror) were often in danger from stupendous icebergs and thick pack ice 

 that frequently extended in masses too close and serried to be bored through. 

 Only at one point did the ice wall sink low enough to allow of its upper 

 surface being seen from the masthead, lloss approached this point, which 

 was only some fifty feet above the level of the sea, and obtained a good view, 

 lie describes tho/ upper surface of the ice as a smooth plain shining like 



