154 EFFECTS OF POEESTS ON RAINFALL. 



Herald," sent by the spirited proprietor of that paper on a voyage 

 of discovery, made by the Pandora, last year to the Arctic regions, 

 the expense being shared with him by the late Lady Franklin, and by 

 Captain Allen Young, who went in command of the vessel, — there is 

 given the following account of Greenland. Speaking of the interior 

 of the continent of Greenland as an icy solitude, — a secret unknown 

 to man, and likely ever to remain such, — he goes on to say : — " Its 

 surface is 4,000 feet above the sea, and when you ascend to it you 

 will probably perceive somewhere on the plain which rises before you 

 in a slight ascent till it touches the sky two or three little sharp 

 conical hills, a few feet high, that pierce through the ice, and you 

 will be astonished to learn that these insignificant mole-hills are in 

 reality the tops of lofty mountains, that have been submerged 

 beneath the mighty inundation of ice. Somebody has said of 

 Switzerland that if it were ironed out it would be a very large 

 country. If Switzerland were about ten thousand times larger than 

 it is, and ice were then poured into it until it should be full up 

 nearly to a level with the highest mountain peaks, it would present 

 just the appearance of the interior of Greenland. And yet the 

 whole of this vast continent was at one period of the earth's history 

 green and fertile. There have been found here forests of carbonised 

 trees and plants, and the fossil remains of many animals that could 

 only have existed in a warm climate. Fossil corals and sponges are 

 often picked up now in Lancaster Sound and on the shore of Beechy 

 Island. It is certain that the climiite was soft and mild, and that 

 the country was covered with trees and verdure, and it is equally 

 certain that this terrible iniindatioa of ice came and buried every 

 vestige of it, as Heroulaneeum and Pompeii were buried beneath the 

 ashes of Vesuvius. But, instead of the two poor little villages, and 

 perhaps a few square miles of the adjacent country, that Vesuvius 

 covered with its fine ashes as with a soft warm blanket, here is a 

 continent larger than the whole of Europe, buried beneath a massive 

 sea of ice. It is as though the waters of the flood had suddenly 

 frozen to the very bottom, and had never thawed." 



Such are " the treasures of the snow," and " the treasures of the 

 hail," to be found in the Arctic and Antartic regions of the earth, 

 borne thither from the equator and the tropics, ever in a state of 

 flux, but ever renewed by fresh accessions. Of the evaporation by 

 which this is maintained, the quantity of moisture taken up by the 

 air in its passage over earth and sea to the equator from the poles, 

 I cannot hope to convey either an adequate or a definite idea. It is 



