14 MAN AND THE GLACIAL PERIOD. 



great, few icebergs of large size break off and float away 

 from it. 



Nova Zembla, though not in quite so high latitude, 

 has a lower mean temperature upon the coasts than Spitz - 

 bergen. Owing to the absence of high lands and moun- 

 tains, however, it is not covered with perpetual snow, 

 much less with glacial ice, but its level portions are 

 " carpeted with grasses and flowers," and sustain exten- 

 sive forests of stunted trees. 



Franz-Josef Land, to the north of Nova Zembla, both 

 contains high mountains and supports glaciers of great 

 size. Mr. Payer conducted a sledge party into this land 

 in 1874, and reported that a precipitous wall of glacial 

 ice, " of more than a hundred feet in height, formed the 

 usual edge of the coast." But the motion of the ice is 

 very slow, and the ice coarse-grained in structure, and it 

 bears a small amount only of morainic material. So low 

 is here the line of perpetual snow, that the smaller islands 

 "are covered with caps of ice, so that a cross-section 

 would exhibit a regular flat segment of ice." It is in- 

 teresting to note, also, that u many ice-streams, descend- 

 ing from the high neve plateau, spread themselves out 

 over the mountain-slopes," and are not, as in the Alps, 

 confined to definite valleys. 



Iceland seems to have been properly named, since a 

 single one of the snow-fields — that of Vatnajokiill, with 

 an extreme elevation of only six thousand feet — is esti- 

 mated by Helland to cover one hundred and fifty Nor- 

 wegian square miles (about seven thousand English square 

 miles), while five other ice-fields (the Langjokiill, the 

 Hofsjoktill, the Myrdalsjoktill, the Drangajoklill, and the 

 Glamujokull) have a combined area of ninety-two Nor- 

 wegian or about four thousand five hundred English 

 square miles. The glaciers are supposed by Whitney to 

 have been rapidly advancing for some time past. 



In Asia. — Notwithstanding its lofty mountains and its 



