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1870. | BROWN—PHYSICS OF ARCTIC ICE. 697 
sequence of their submarine situation ; but this is very different from 
the ice-grooving of the subglacial boulders. 
5. Life in the Old Waters—The rarity of life in many of the glacial 
beds need not be wondered at when we consider what I have said 
regarding the capricious and even sporadic distribution of life in the 
fjords of Greenland. It is possible also, as Lyell suggests, that ani- 
mal life was originally scarce; for “‘ we read of the waters being so 
chilled and freshened by the melting of icebergs in some Norwegian 
and Icelandic fjords that the fish are driven away and all the mol- 
lusca killed”'. He also points out most justly that, as the moraines 
are at the first devoid of life, if transported by icebergs to a distance, 
and deposited where the ice melts, they may continue as barren of 
every indication of life as they were where they originated. That 
the freshening of the water of fjords does destroy or prevent animal 
life developing, I have already shown ; but I doubt whether the chill- 
ing has much, if any eifect; and the recent researches of Carpenter, 
Jeffreys, Thomson, and others show that the idea which was sug- 
gested, that the sea might then be too deep for animal life, is without 
foundation ; for life seems, as far as our present knowiedge goes, 
to have no zero; besides, the shells found in the glacial formations 
are not deep-sea shells. Again, we must be careful to avoid con- 
cluding that the plant- and animal life on the dreary shores or 
mountain-tops of the old glacial Scotland was poor. In Greenland, 
the outskirting islands support a luxuriant phanerogamic vegetation 
of between 300 and 400 species of plants”; the sea is full of fishes 
and invertebrates, which shelter in forests of Alge. Plants even 
ascend to the height of 4000 feet. Millions of seals and whales, 
and of many species, sport in these waters, or are killed in thousands 
every spring on the pack-ice or land-floes. Every rock is swarming 
and noisy with the cries of water-fowl ; reindeer browse in count- 
less herds in some of the valleys; the Arctic fox barks its huc! 
huc! from the dreariest rocks in the depth of winter; and the polar 
bear is on the range all the year round. lLand-birds from southern 
regions come here for a nesting-place *®, and from the snowy valleys 
the Greenlanders will bring in the depth of winter sledge-loads of 
ptarmigan into the Danish posts. Life is so abundant that the 
Danish Government find it profitable to keep up trading-posts there, 
and the collecting and preserving of the skins, oil, and ivory of the 
native animals afford profitable employment to a considerable 
population. Independently of the fish eaten, the seals used as food 
and clothing, and the oil consumed in the country, it may not be 
1 Lyell’s ‘ Antiquity of Man,’ p. 268. 
2 The present writer, in little more than two months, amid many other occu- 
pations, collected on the shores and in the vicinity of Disco Bay alone, 129 
species of flowering plants and vascular eryptogams, more than 40 mosses (39 
are described in the paper already mentioned ; but several additional have been 
since detected among the collection), 11 Hepatica, more than 100 Lichens, about 
50 Algs, and several Fungi (see ‘Transactions of the Edinburgh Botanical 
Society,’ vol. ix.). 
* About 115 species of birds are found in Greenland. 
352 
