PINGEL, SUBSIDENCE OF SOUTH GREENLAND 483 



I'uins of ancient Greenland winter houses are to be seen at low 

 water. 



Dr. Pingel is not aware of any instance of subsidence in the 

 more northern districts, but he suspects that the phenomenon 

 reaches at least as far as Disco Bay, or nearly to 69° north lat. 



Note. — Some facts relating to the Rise and Fall of the Green- 

 land Coast have been collected by Dr. R. Brown in the " Quart. 

 Journ. Geol. Soc," xxvi., pp. 690-692 (June 1870). Reprinted 

 in the Royal Geograph, Soc. Manual, published for th^ Arctic 

 Expedition. 



LVIIL— Recent Elevations of the Earth's Surface in 

 the Northern Circumpolar Region. By Henry 



H. HOWORTH, 



[Reprinted in part, with Permission, from the Journal of the Roy^l 

 Geographical Society, London, vol. xHii., 1873, pp. 240-263.] 



It is well known that Greenland is subject to a move- 

 ment of oscillation, the northern portion of it being in process 

 of elevation, and the southern of depression, the axis of the 

 movement being variously placed between the parallels of 74 and 

 77, I will quote a passage from Dr. Kane's travels : " The 

 " opportunity I had to-day of comparing the terrace and boulder- 

 " lines of Mary River and Charlotte- Wood Fiord enables me 

 " to assert positively the interesting fact of a secular elevation 

 *' of the crust commencing at some as yet undetermined point 

 *' north of 76°, and continuing to the great glacier and the high 

 " northern latitudes of Grinnell Land. This elevation is con- 

 " nected with the equally well-sustained depression of the Green- 

 " land coast south of Kingutak." *" Again : " The depression of 

 " the Greenland coast which I had delected as far north as 

 " Upernavik is also going on here {i.e., the Crimson Cliffs). 

 " Some of the Esquimaux huts were washed by the sea or torn 

 " away by the ice that had descended with the tides. The turf 

 *' too, a representation of very ancient growth, was cut off even 

 " with the water's edge, giving sections 2 feet thick. I had 

 " noticed before such unmistakable evidence of the depression 

 *' of this coast. Its converse elevation I had observed to the 

 " north of Wolstenholme Sound. The axis of oscillation must 

 " be somewhere in the neighbourhood of latitude 77°." | 

 M'Clintock says : " It has been abundantly proved by the exis- 

 " tence of raised beaches and fossils that the shores of Smith's 

 " Sound have been elevated within a comparatively recent period." 

 He then goes on to show that this elevation has probably ceased 

 in the very latest times, and concludes that at Upernavik the land 



* Vol. ii. p. 80. t Op. cit. p. 277. See also " The Open Polar Sea," p. 402. 



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