Page:Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, vol. 33.djvu/185

Rh AND CIRQUES IN NORWAY AND GREENLAND. 147

land is but a collection of islands, — in other words, that the Skiirgard on the coast represents in miniature the whole country, except that these islands are covered up and connected by a continuous ice- sheet. With this idea any one who is familiar with a fjord and its ramifications cannot agree. Greenland is a fjord land, as is the west coast either of Norway or of North America ; so that if we would form a conception of what is concealed by the ice in it, we must study what is uncovered in them. Here, then, it is obvious that large, deep, and strongly marked fjords do not intercept the country as sounds, but pierce into the land as valleys whose ramifi- cations at last die away in the interior. We conclude, therefore, that the structure of Greenland is somewhat similar, and so that it is not a collection, of islands.

The Glaciers in the Ice-fjords. — These stand in the same relation to the Inland Ice as a river docs to the lake from which it flows. If the former be dammed up, the level of tho latter rises ; so, if the ice- fjord be blocked, the thickness of the Inland Ice will increase until it can find a new outlet. We may divide the ice-fjords into those which produce large bergs and those which only produce small bergs and " calf-ice ;" the nature, however, of both is the same, the appearance of the glaciers, and their junction with the Inland Ice ; but the quantity of ice which the glaciers of the larger fjords dis- charge into the sea as bergs is so great as to distinguish them from the rest. Of the five fjords in North Greenland of the former class, four are situated in the district here described ; two of these, that of Jakobshavn and that of Torsukatak, lead from Disko Bay into the mainland ; the other two, the greater Karajak and the Umiamako (the Great Kangerdlugssuak of Dr. Bank's map), occur in the district of Umanak * : the name here given is the one used by the Green- landers, and that of Kangerdlugssuak f is applied to a fjord directly south of the Umiamako.

Of the smaller ice-fjords there are two in Disko Bay, that of Alangordlck and that of Sarkardlek. These debouch into two branches of the Tasuissak, a lateral fjord of the Jakobshavn. Tho following are in the district of Umanak, between the Great Karajak on the south and the Umiamako on the north — the Little Karajak, the Sermelek, the Slivdiarssuk, the Ingnerit, the Kangcrdluarssuk, and the Kangerdlugssuak. Jakobshavn Fjord is filled by the great glacier (situated, according to Dr. Bink, in G9° 10' north lat.) which produces the numerous icebergs in Disko Bay ; the immense number of these of all sizes renders the fjord inaccessible to boats in the summer time, for then the ice makes it hardly possible to see the water, even from an elevation. The glacier, however, can be reached by a circuitous route, as mentioned by Dr. liink and Prof. Nordenskjold. I went to a place named Tivsarigssok, a creek covered with ice and blocked up by the glacier which fills the fjord. The sea, however, extends to this place, for the ice of the creek

t This word means " a great fjord," a further reason for not prefixing "great " to it,
 * The fifth fjord is that of Upernivik in the district of the same name,

Q.J.G.S. No. 129. l