oar The American Geologist. May, 1892 
Greenland: Regarding recent changes in the ice sheet of 
Greenland there is but scanty evidence, and such observations as 
have been made on the advance and retreat of the margin of the 
ice are conflicting. Holts found in 1880, between latitude 61 and 
65° 30’, on the west coast, according to Lindahl,* that ‘‘the bor- 
der of the ice appeared to have retreated quite recently in many 
places; in others it had decidedly advanced.” Nansen remarks 
in this connection that we cannot even conjecture what the present 
conditions are, and thinks that the observations show that there 
is no strong tendency either towards advance or retreat. Warren 
Upham, who has recently reviewed the literature relating to the 
Greenland ice sheet, informs me that in his judgment the ice is 
now slightly increasing in thickness and generally in extent. 
This conclusion rests largely on the general absence of debris on 
the borders of the ice sheet. His studies have also led him to 
the conclusion that Greenland, in common with other portions of 
the northeast border of this continent, is now having an appre- 
ciable increase in cold. 
The observations of those who have traversed the inland ice 
seems to indicate that nearly its entire surface is in the condition 
of anévé, and suggest that growth and not retreat must be in 
progress. The absence of debris on the borders of the ice sheet 
referred to by Upham, is important in this connection, and seems 
to indicate that no great waste of ice occurs before it is discharged 
into the sea. So far as one may judge from the observations of 
others, it seems as if the evidence available points to an increase 
of the ice sheet, as supposed by Upham, but I do not give much 
weight to this conclusion. Dufour, however, in a paper cited in 
the beginning of this essay, is inclined to the opposite conclusion. 
He states that in 1880 he made a communication on the retreat of 
the glaciers of Europe and Asia before a scientific congress at 
teims, and that during the discussion which followed one of the 
persons present, who had been in Greenland several times, men- 
tioned that he ‘shad noticed that the glaciers of that land had also 
*Am. Nat., Vol. 22, 1888, p. 593. 
+First Crossing of Greenland, Vol. 1, p. 491. 
{The conclusions of Mr. Upham are also contained in the following 
papers:—*On the cause of the cold of the Glacial Epoch,” Am. Geol., 
Vol. v1, 1890, p. 336; and “The ice sheet of Greenland,” Am. Geol., Vol. 
virl, 1891, p. 150: OC riteria of englacial and subglacial drift,’ Am. Geol., 
Vol. vir, 1891, p. 385. 
