34 MAN AND THE GLACIAL PERIOD. 



surface, they, one and all, plunged with deafening roar 

 into some yawning crevasse, to find their way to the sea 

 through subglacial channels. Numerous lakes with shores 

 of ice were also encountered. 



" On bending down the ear to the ice," says this ex- 

 plorer, " we could hear on every side a peculiar subter- 

 ranean hum, proceeding from rivers flowing within the 

 ice ; and occasionally a loud, single report, like that of a 

 cannon, gave notice of the formation of a new glacier- 

 cleft. ... In the afternoon we saw at some distance from 

 us a well-defined pillar of mist, which, when we approached 

 it, appeared to rise from a bottomless abyss, into which a 

 mighty glacier-river fell. The vast, roaring water-mass 

 had bored for itself a vertical hole, probably down to the 

 rock, certainly more than two thousand feet beneath, on 

 which the glacier rested."* 



At the end of the eighteen days Nordenskiold found 

 himself about a hundred and fifty miles from his starting- 

 point, and about five thousand feet above the sea. Here 

 the party rested, and sent two Eskimos forward on sJcidor 

 — a kind of long wooden skate, with which they could 

 move rapidly over the ice, notwithstanding the numerous 

 small, circular holes which everywhere pitted the surface. 

 These Eskimos were gone fift}^-seven hours, having slept 

 only four hours of the period. It is estimated that they 

 made about a hundred and fifty miles, and attained an 

 altitude of six thousand feet. The ice is reported as rising 

 in distinct terraces, and as seemingly boundless beyond. 

 If this is the case, two hundred miles from Disco Bay, 

 there would seem little hope of finding in Greenland an 

 interior freed from ice. So we may pretty confidently 

 speak of that continental body of land as still enveloped 

 in an ice-sheet. Up to about latitude 75°, however, the 

 continent is fringed by a border of islands, over which 



* Geological Magazine, vol. ix, pp. 393, 399. 



