36 MAN AND THE GLACIAL PERIOD. 



ments. Direct measurements of the velocity have now 

 been applied on three first-rate and one second-rate fiords, 

 all situated between 69° and 71° north latitude. The 

 measurements have been repeated during the coldest and 

 the warmest season, and connected with surveying and 

 other investigations of the inlets and their environs. It 

 is now proved that the glacier branches which produce 

 the bergs proceed incessantly at a rate of thirty to fifty 

 feet per diem, this movement being not at all influenced 

 by the seasons. . . . 



In the ice-fiord of Jakobshavn, which spreads its enor- 

 mous bergs over Disco Bay and probably far into the At- 

 lantic, the productive part of the glacier is 4,500 metres 

 (about 2-J- miles) broad. The movement along its middle 

 line, which is quicker than on the sides nearer the 'shores, 

 can be rated at fifty feet per diem. The bulk of ice here 

 annually forced into the sea would, if taken on the shore, 

 make a mountain two miles long, two miles broad, and 

 1,000 feet high. The ice-fiord of Torsukatak receives 

 four or five branches of the glacier ; the most productive 

 of them is about 9,000 metres broad (five miles), and 

 moves between sixteen and thirty-two feet per diem. The 

 large Karajak Glacier, about 7,000 metres (four miles) 

 broad, proceeds at a rate of from twenty-two to thirty- 

 eight feet per diem. Finally, a glacier branch dipping 

 into the fiord of Jtivdliarsuk, 5,800 metres broad (three 

 miles), moved between twenty-four and forty-six feet per 

 diem.* 



The principal part of our information concerning the 

 glaciers of Greenland north of Melville Bay was obtained 

 by Drs. Kane and Hayes, in 1853 and 1854, while con- 

 ducting an expedition in search of Sir John Franklin and 

 his unfortunate crew. Dr. Hayes conducted another ex- 



* See Transactions of the Edinburgh Geological Society for Feb- 

 ruary 18, 1886, toI. v, part ii, pp. 286-293. 



