244 
The American Geologist, 
April, 1896 
and figures, derived from photographs, in the text. (New York: D. 
Appleton & Co., 1896.) In this little volume the two authors have 
brought together a great amount of information, descriptive, historical, 
and scientific, regarding the northwestern part of the Atlantic. They 
make especial reference, of course, to the great ice-center and ice-radi¬ 
ant of Greenland; but the adjoining region of Labrador receives inci¬ 
dental notice. In the preface and in several of the chapters are found 
the personal experiences of the senior author, who in 1894 joined the 
large party of the Miranda scientific expedition to make observations on 
the glacial phenomena and conditions of this arctic sea. Though un¬ 
fortunately disappointed in the full realization of their plans and placed 
for a time in some danger, owing to collisions with ice and rocks, the 
members of the party made the most use possible of their limited time 
and opportunity, bringing back results of interest and value, as well as 
personal recollections that will doubtless last their lifetime. No one 
could pass through the scenes so well described in the preface without 
being to some extent changed by them for the rest of his days. 
The first part of the work contains an account of the land and sea on 
the Labrador coast. Incidentally many interesting details of the life of 
the few inhabitants of that desolate country are woven into the story, 
giving it a general interest which otherwise it might not possess. But 
it is only the geological portion of the work that calls for notice here. 
The author sums up the previous notes of others, chiefly of Packard 
and Low, showing that the region consists of gneiss with trap dikes, 
excepting a large area of Cambrian rocks in the north on Ungava bay. 
These last are “conglomerates, sandstones, slates, shales, and lime¬ 
stones, together with intrusive igneous rocks,” and containing large 
beds of iron ore. Raised beaches indicate recent elevation from Henley 
Harbor to the northward. The rugged and angular outlines of the 
mountains of northern Labrador, strown with frost-riven blocks of local 
origin above the altitude of 2,000 feet, prove that these mountains near 
Cape Chidley were not covered with an ice-sheet. 
The fourth chapter consists of a narrative of Prof. Wright’s excur¬ 
sions on the Greenland coast, including an examination of the large 
glacier at the head of Ikamiut fjord and of numerous smaller glaciers 
on its sides. One fact was noted wherein these small ice masses, called 
“hanging glaciers,” differ from the more familiar glaciers of the Alps. 
In consequence of the coolness of the climate they thicken towards their 
ends, the upper portion pushing down over the lower as the slope of the 
bed decreases. 
The chapter on the flora of Greenland, which is chiefly based on the 
works of Dr. Henry Rink and Dr. Robert Brown, interests the geologist 
by showing how large a number of plants can flourish close to the edge 
of this immense sheet of ice and even upon the “nunataks” that rise 
through it. “For example, on Jensen’s nunataks, a cluster of rocky 
peaks rising 100 to 500 feet above the inland ice, at a distance of nearly 
50 miles back.Kornerup, the geologist and botanist of Lieutenant 
Jensen’s party, in 1878, collected 27 species of flowering plants. The 
