38 



Then we have the possibility left that the richness of 

 coarser ingredients in the samples now under discussion is 

 due to the presence of loose rocks of earlier formation at the 

 bottom of the sea, these being most likely of the nature of till. 

 The theory of the presence of such a moraine has already been 

 propounded by Bay (Medd. om Grønland. XIX, p. 185) and is 

 founded partly on the belief that no deposit due to icebergs 

 is found north of Scoresby Sund, partly on the nature of 

 the rocks which have been brought to light by trawling. The 

 first evidence is not very convincing, as the occurrence of 

 icebergs must of necessity be very irregular, and very varying 

 from one year to the next, and even if the ice only deposited 

 small quantities of material, this would in the course of many 

 years , form very extensive deposits. The evidence which is 

 founded on the nature of the rocks is of far greater import- 

 ance, and will be given more fully later in the following. It 

 suffices here to mention that an examination of the rocks of 

 the samples in question almost always shows a remarkable 

 affinity to the solid rocks of the country nearest to them, so 

 it is quite natural to suppose that they must originate partly 

 from moraines at the bottom of the sea. 



As the samples No. 1 — 7 are the only ones which have 

 been taken in a connected series at right angles to the coast 

 direction, we might expect more particularly from these samples 

 to find a proof of the presence of a moraine. With regard 

 to the depth, we have already seen that it decreases gradually 

 as we approach the shore. The conclusions arrived at will 

 however be different if we take into consideration locality 1) 

 (p. 186) mentioned by Bay. This is situated very near station I 

 of this expedition, being only about 2^/2 kilom. farther east, 

 and the depth is stated to be 127 Danish fathoms while that 

 of station No. 1 is 162 D. fathoms. We have then here the 

 only really certain case in which the presence of a submarine 

 moraine is clearly proved by the relief of the sea-flor. We may 



