676 PROCEEDINGS OF THE GEOLOGICAL SOCIETY. [June 22, 
not see to the bottom of them, nor did the sounding-cord reach 
down except a short way. The depth of the ice-covering will of 
course vary; when it lies over a valley it will be deeper, over a 
mountain-top less. All we know is, that just now it is almost level 
throughout, hill and dale making no difference. However, with such 
a huge superincumbent mass of ice, the average height of the coast- 
lying islands is greater than that of the inland ice, and it is only after 
climbing considerable heights that it can be seen’. Therefore suppo- 
sing this covering to be removed, I think the country would look like 
a huge shallow oblong vessel with high walls around it. The surface 
of the ice is ridged and furrowed after the manner of glaciers gene- 
rally ; and this furrowing does not decrease as we go further inland ; 
on the contrary, as far as our limited means of observation go, it seems 
to increase; so that even were it possible to cross this vast icy desert 
on dog-sledges when the snow is on the ground, I do not think it 
would be possible to return, and its exploration would require 
the aid of a ship on the other side. On its surface there appears 
not a trace of any living thing; and after leaving the little outpouring 
offshoot of a glacier from it, the dreariness of the scene is not relieved 
by even the sight of a patch of earth, a stone, or aught belonging to 
the world we seem to have left behind. Once, and only once, during 
our attempt to explore this waste did I see a faint red streak, which 
showed the existence of the red snow plant (Protococcus nivalis) ; but 
even this was before the land had been fairly left. Animal life seems 
to have left the vicinity ; and the chilliness of the afternoon breeze, 
which regularly blew with piercing bitterness over the ice-wastes, 
even caused the Eskimo dogs to crouch under the lee of the sledge, 
and made us, their masters, draw the fur hoods of our coats higher 
about our ears*. Whether this ice-field is continuous from north to 
south it is not possible in the present state of our knowledge to 
decide; but most likely itisso. The American explorer Hayes* pene- 
trated in upon it in Smith’s Sound, with the same results that we 
did in mid Greenland and off Disco Bay, while Kielsen*, Rink, and 
other Danish officers have seen it stretching continuously north and 
south from where they observed it in South Greenland; so that 
every fact seems to bear us out in our belief that no transverse 
ranges of mountains, or land of any extent, break the latitudinal 
stretch of this “inland ice.” Whether its longitudinal range is 
continuous is more difficult to decide, though the same observers we 
have quoted saw nothing to the eastward to break their view ; so 
that, as I shall immediately discuss, there seems every probability 
that in Greenland there is one continuous unbroken level field of ice, 
swaddling up in its snowy winding-sheet hill and valley, without a 
In Rink’s ‘ Gronland, ii. p. 2, are two characteristic views of the appear- 
ance of the interior ice seen from such elevations. 
For description of the effects of the ice in limiting animal and vegetable life 
vide the author’s ‘Mammalian Fauna of Greenland,’ Proc. Zool. Soc. Lond. 
1868, p. 337; and “ Florula Discoana,” Trans. Bot. Soc. Edin. vol. ix. p. 440. 
3 «Open Polar Sea.’ 
* Rink’s ‘ Gronland Geographisk og Statistisk,’ part iii. (vol. 1.) pp. 97-99. 
