PROF. NORDENSKIOLD, EXPEDITION TO GREENLAND. 401 



far as we could judge from the descriptions, very like the geysers 

 which in Iceland are produced by volcanic heat. 



In order, if possible, to avoid the district of ice-rocks, which 

 on our journey out had required so much patience and exertion, 

 we had in returning chosen a more northerly route, intending to 

 endeavour to descend from the ice-ridge higher up on the slip of 

 ice-free land, which lies between the inland ice and Disko Bay. 

 The ice was here, with the exception of a few ice-hillocks of a few 

 few feet high, in most places as even as a floor, but often crossed 

 by very largo and dangerous clefts, and we were so fortunate as 

 immediately to hit upon a place where the inclination towards 

 the land was so inconsiderable that one might have driven up it 

 four-in-hand. 



The remainder of the way along the land was harder, partly on 

 account of the very uneven nature of the ground, and partly 

 on account of the numerous glacier-streams which we had to 

 wade through, with the water far above our boots. At last, at 

 a little distance from the tent, we came to a muddy glacier- 

 stream, so large that, after several failures, we were obliged to 

 .ibandon the hope of finding a fordable place. We were, therefore, 

 obliged to climb high up again upon the shining ice, so as to be 

 able to find our way down again further on, after passing the 

 river ; but the descent on this occasion was far more difficult 

 than before. 



Laborious as this journey along the land was, it was, neverthe- 

 less, extremely interesting to me in a geological point of view. 

 We passed in fact over ground that had but lately been aban- 

 doned by the inland ice, and the whole bore such a resemblance 

 to the woodless gneiss-districts in Sweden and Finland, that even 

 the most sceptical persons would be obliged to admit that the 

 same formative power had impressed its stamp on both localities. 

 Everywhere rounded, but seldom scratched, hills of gneiss* with 

 erratic blocks in the most unstable positions of equilibrium, occur, 

 separated by valleys with small mountain-lakes and scratched 

 rock-surfaces. On the other hand, no real moraines were dis- 

 coverable. These, indeed, seem to be in general absent in Scan- 

 dinavia, and are, generally speaking, more characteristic of small 

 glaciers than of real inland ice. 



The border of the ice is, as indicated in Figs. 1 and 2, p. 402, 

 everywhere sprinkled with smaller boulders, partly rounded, partly 

 angular ; but the number of these is so inconsiderable, that, when 

 the ice retires, they give rise only to a slope covered with 

 boulders ; not to a moraine, similar, for example, to that which the 

 little Assakak glacier in Omenakfjord drives before it. The little 

 earth-bank, which at most places collects at the foot of the glacier, 



* For the preservation of a scratched rock-surface it is necessary that it 

 should be protected by a layer of water, clay, or sand, from the destructive 

 effects of frost, and more especially from those of Lichens. The finest scratches 

 disappear in a few years from a mountain slab, the position of which is 

 favourable to the growth of Lichens, but are, on the contrary, preserved where 

 Lichen- vegetation cannot develop itself— as, for example, when the rock is, 

 for a time in the spring, covered with water. 



36122. C C 



