Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/177



IMPORTANT RESULTS OF THE RECENT JOURNEY.—THE GLACIER SYSTEM OF GREENLAND.—GENERAL DISCUSSION OF THE SUBJECT.—ILLUSTRATIONS DRAWN FROM THE ALPINE GLACIERS.—GLACIER MOVEMENT.—OUTLINE OF THE GREENLAND MER DE GLACE.

The results of the journey recorded in the last chapter gave me great satisfaction. They furnished an important addition to the observations which I had made in former years; and I was glad to have an opportunity to form a more clear conception of the glacier system of Greenland. The journey possesses the greater value, that it was the first successful attempt which had been made to penetrate into the interior over the mer de glace.

Although I had, in my overland journey from Van Rensselaer Harbor with Mr. Wilson, in 1853, reached the face of the mer de glace, where it rested behind the lofty chain of hills which runs parallel with the axis of the continent, yet this was the first time that I had actually been upon it; and its vastness did not on the former occasion impress me as now. Even the description of the great Humboldt Glacier which I had from Mr. Bonsall, and the knowledge that I had acquired of the immense glacier discharges of the region further south, failed to inspire me with a full comprehension of the immensity of ice which lies in the valleys and upon the sides of the Greenland mountains.

Greenland may indeed be regarded as a vast reservoir