354 Dr. J. Croll on the Ice of 
The opinion was expressed by Giesecke, who long resided 
in Greenland, that that country is merely a collection of 
islands fused together by ice. This opinion is concurred in 
by Dr. Brown, who says that " most likely it will be found 
that Greenland will end in a broken series of islands forming 
a Polar archipelago. That the continent (?) is itself a series 
of such islands and islets — consolidated by means of the inland 
ice — I have already shown to be highly probable, if not abso- 
lutely certain, as Giesecke and Scoresby affirmed." It has 
long been a belief that several of the west-coast fjords cut 
through Greenland from sea to sea — in short, that they are 
simply straits filled up with ice. The important bearing that 
this island-condition of Greenland has on the explanation of 
the warm interglacial periods of that country will be shown 
in a future article. 
Antarctic Regions. — It needly hardly be remarked, that what 
has been stated as to the total absence of proof that Greenland 
possesses elevated plateaus and ranges of lofty mountains holds 
in a still more marked degree in reference to the Antarctic 
continent. Here is a region nearly 3000 miles across, buried 
under ice, on which the foot of man never trod. There is not 
the shadow of a ground for concluding that the interior of this 
immense region is, under the ice, greatly elevated, or that it 
possesses lofty mountain-ranges. The probability seems rather 
to be that, like Greenland, the area, as Sir Wyville Thomson 
supposes, consists of comparatively low dismembered land or 
groups of islands bound together by a continuous sheet of ice. 
' ; We have no evidence," says Sir Wyville, " that this space, 
which includes an area of about 4,500,000 square miles, nearly 
double that of Australia, is continuous land. The presumption 
would seem rather to be that it is at all events greatly broken 
up: a large portion of it probably consisting of groups of low 
islands united and combined by an extension of the ice-sheet. " 
" Various patches of Antarctic land," he continues, " are 
now known with certainty, most of them between the paral- 
lels of 65° and 70° S. ; most of these are comparatively low, 
their height, including the thickness of their ice-covering, 
rarely exceeding 2000 to 3000 feet. The exceptions to this 
rule are the volcanic chain, stretching from Balleny Island to 
latitude 78° S.; and a group of land between 55° and 95° west 
longitude, including Peter the Great Island. Alexander Land, 
Graham Land, Adelaide Island, and Louis Philippe Land. 
The remaining Antarctic Land, including Adelie Land, Clairie 
Land, Sabrina Land, Kemp Land, and Enderby Land, nowhere 
rises to any great height"*. 
* ' Lecture on Antarctic Regions ' (Collins, Glasgow, lb~7) ; 'Nature/ 
vol. XV. 
