226 The American Naturalist. [March, 
possible to examine in detail the immense deposits originally formed in 
front of glaciers. These deposits now lie between the present shore-line 
and the edge of the glacier of to-day. The author instances a formation 
of this nature to be found at the head of Green Harbor, one of the minor 
indentations on the southern side of Ice Fiord, and describes it as 
follows : 
“The front of the glacier that now occupies the valley is about a 
mile distant from the present shore-line. Fronting this glacier, the 
terminal face of which is about 50 feet in height, and extending for 12 
miles in length, is a range of some 50 to 70 feet high and } mile in 
width. These hills have undergone much subærial erosion, and chan- 
nels have been cut in them by the numerous streams issuing from under 
the glacier. Following up one of these water courses, which average 
from 25 to 50 yards across, with a very level bottom, we find sections 
of mud and clay rising like walls on either side to a height of 50 to 60 
feet. These beds contain numerous stones, but do not show any signs 
of stratification ; in them I found shells of Mya truncata. That these 
beds are of submarine formation is confirmed by the existence of raised 
beaches in neighboring fiords and along the adjacent line of coast, at a 
higher level than the beds I am now describing. Between the present 
face of the glacier and the perpendicular wall of the mud-hills runs a 
sort of ditch, dry moat, or open space, some 30 yards in width, along 
the entire front of the glacier. The bottom of this ditch is thickly 
strewn with morainic débris, composed of rounded ice-worn stones, many 
being deeply grooved, scarred and scratched. Through this slope of 
rocks and stones glacier streams were pouring forth.” 
The author suggests, that since this process of rock accumulation 
probably went on when the glacier projected in the sea, that during the 
emergence period there would come a time when the bay-ice would 
freeze deep enough to incorporate the boulders of the moraine, and 
quantities of ice-scratched and ice-polished stones would be floated away 
on the breaking up of the bay-ice in the spring. This would explain 
the occurrence of the vast number of scratched erratics found in the 
glacio-marine beds of Kolgnev Island. 
Observations made in Greenland show that in the neighborhood of 
glaciers discharging into the sea the water is charged with sediment, 
and the ship’s anchor when lifted in front of some of these glaciers 
brings up a heavy weight of unctuous mud, thus confirming the theory 
that “ water issuing from under a glacier in Polar regions, and dis- 
charging from under the ice into the sea, can lay down glacio marine 
beds in the ocean,” and.the occurrence of ice-scratched stones through- 
