Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/448



July 2d.

I have been occupied during the past two days with running a set of levels from the harbor across to the fiord and with plotting the terraces. These terraces are twenty-three in number and rise very regularly to an altitude of one hundred and ten feet above the mean tide-level. The lowest rises thirty-two feet higher than the tide, but above this they climb up with great regularity. They are composed of small pebbles rounded by water action.

Of these terraces I have frequently made mention in this journal, and their existence in all similar localities has been before remarked. They have much geological interest, as illustrating the gradual upheaval of that part of Greenland lying north of latitude 76°; and the interest attaching to them is heightened when viewed in connection with the corresponding depression which has taken place, even within the period of Christian occupation, in southern Greenland. These evidences of the sinking of the Greenland coast from about Cape York, southward, are too well known to need any comment in this place; but I may dwell, for a few moments, upon the evidences of rising of the coast here and northward. At many conspicuous points, where the current is swift and the ice is pressed down upon the land with great force and rapidity, the rocks are worn away until they are as smooth and polished as the surface of a table,—a fact which may at any time be observed by looking down through the clear water. This smoothness of the rock continues above the sea, to an elevation which I have not been able with positive accuracy to determine in any locality, but having a general correspondence to the height of the terraces at