THE GLACIERS OF GREENLAND. 87 



and then, following the irregularities of its rocky substructure, 

 suddenly became a steep creyassed hill, ascending in abrupt 

 terraces. Then came two intervals of less rugged ice, from 

 which the glacier passed into the great mer de glace. 



On ascending a high, craggy hill to the northward, I had a 

 sublime prospect of this great frozen ocean, which seems to 

 form the continental axis of Greenland — a vast, undulating 

 plain of purple-tinted ice, studded with islands, and absolutely 

 gemming the horizon with the varied glitter of sun- tipped 

 crystal. 



The discharge of water from the lower surface of the gla- 

 cier exceeded that of any of the northern glaciers except that 

 of Humboldt and the one near Etah. One torrent on the side 

 nearest me overran the ice-foot from two to five feet in depth, 

 and spread itself upon the floes for several hundred yards ; 

 and another, finding its outlet near the summit of the glacier, 

 broke over the rocks and poured in cataracts upon the beach 

 below.* 



Between Wolstenholrne Sound and Murchison Strait, 

 about latitude 76° 60', Tyndall Glacier comes down to the 

 sea in a broad current ten or twelve miles in width ; while 

 twenty or twenty-five miles to the north, on Northumberland 

 Island, a curious glacier is described by Kane, which he 

 calls a " hanging glacier," and named after his brother John. 

 " It seemed," he says, " as if a caldron of ice inside the 

 coast-ridge was boiling over, and throwing its crust in huge 

 fragments from the overhanging lip into the sea below. The 

 glacier must have been eleven hundred feet high ; but even 

 at its summit we could see the lines of viscous movement." f 



Upon another point in this island a glacier was encount- 

 ered which affords Dr. Kane opportunity to remark upon 

 some points not often noticed. The party had encamped on 

 a low beach at the foot of a moraine which came down be- 

 tween precipitous cliffs of surpassing wildness. While there, 

 he says : 



* " Arctic Explorations in the Years 1853, 1854, 1855," vol. ii, pp. 270-272. 

 \ Ibid., pp. 259, 260. 



