273 



district, we liave already made acquaintance with the imposing 

 formation of corries that sometimes occur, especially within 

 the basalt territory, where a whole district may be so cut up 

 that only narrow ridges remain. Where these corries, as 

 is the case at Turner Sund, all have their mouths at the 

 same level — about 20Ü m above the sea — one would be 

 inclined to think that they were formed at a period when the 

 sea-level was considerably higher than to-day. To prove this, 

 however, observations would have to be extended to a far wider 

 area than I was able to survey. 



"Striate land". Although this phenomenon is not di- 

 rectly caused by the ice, we will, however, speak of it here. 

 Statements M occur in old works to the effect that observations 

 in polar regions have shown that the loose gravel and clay 

 sometimes are arranged in regular hexagons, without this ob- 

 servation having been the object of detailed investigation. On 

 the other hand, a similar but probably not identical phenomenon, 

 "rutmark" or "chequered land", where the surface is broken by 

 hexahedral Assures, has attracted the attention of the botanists. 



During his expedition to Beeren Island in 1899 J. G. An- 

 dersson observed a phenomenon which he afterwards described 

 under the name "solifluction"^) and which seems to be of great 

 importance for the origin of certain details in the topography 

 of such territories. By saturation with thaw-water, large masses 

 of earth on a slope may assume a semi-migrant structure, and, 

 under favourable conditions, start slowly moving down the slope. 

 These '"mud-streams" may give the gravel on the hill-sides 

 a band-like arrangement on a large scale ; at other times 

 several streams may combine from various directions into a 

 main furrow, like a river and its branches. 



in Greenland \ made several observations that seem to point 



') Th. Fries octi C. Nyström: Svenska Polarexpeditionen 1868. Stock- 

 holm 1869, p. 30. 

 ») J. G. Andersson: Journ. of Geology, XXIV (1906): 91. 

 xxviu. 18 



