Waterbury evening Democrat., 1888-05-08
!" "eREENLAND,s ICY MouNTAlNs.r ?

"GREENLAND's ICY MOUNTAINS" The Desolate Scene Which Meets the
 Lyes of the Hardy Explorer.
 Greenland is a region round which so many romantic memories cling that the announcement that an expedition is on the point of attempting to cross it from sea to sea possesses more than the usual interest of geographical news The latest adventurer is Herr Nansen, Norwegian, whose companions, it is understood, will be several Laplanders skilled in the pecu- liar mode of travel necessary, if 700 miles of snowy glacier are to be passed with anything like success.
 The voyager who for the first time sights the shores of Greenland is a little disappointed. The ''icy mountains" of which Heber sang seem more or less a hymnal myth; for, with the exception of a moderately high hill here and there, the shores consist for the most part of beetling cliffs, noisy with sea fowl or ice- worn inlets, through which glaciers creep from the interior, while out of the fiords that intersect the shore line fleets of ice bergs sail in stately procession. Snow, no doubt, there IS ''much store of" as the discoverer of Davis strait declared there was. But if the landfall is made in summer, with the exception of the drifting icebergs or an occasional icedoe, or some other remnant of the winters cold. the visitor who surveys the country from the ships deck, or even from tho ''crow's nest, sees little of those vast glacier fields of which he cannot fail to have heard. But if once he crosses the few Eiil:'s of ice shaven rocks, or powder stre"n valleys gay with the Arctic flow CTS, oi even green with the creeping birci', 1i:e crowberry, and the dwarf will low. tie vast .'sermiksoak" of the Es- k.,n,' al once faces him.
 Hi, is the edge of the '.inland ice." This '::,e may be in the shape of a more ol i,s~ I;recipitous wall, from which the surplus ice is being discharged into the fjorl n the shape of huge bergs. Or in quiet, reindeer dotted valley, where the flutter of the ptarmigan or the bark of the white fox is the only sound that dis seen crawling to the sea. But once let the explorer ascend it and the scene which it presents to the eye is everywhere much slowly moving from the interior, but
 
 puny glaciers of the Alps and HimaIayas, this ice is not strewn with moraine, unless where, in passing through some glen of the ice bare outskirts of the coast lying strip described, it has dislodged a hanging bank of earth. The con- clusion is thus inevitable that in passing over the country this sheet has not come into contact with anything terrestrial. No sight or sound of living thing is seen on it's surface, unless it may be one of those microscopic plants which cause the fred snow," or others of similar nature, with here and there a minute speck of 'tKryokomite," white powder, the origin of which is probably meteoric. North and south nothing is seen but glacier ice. Eastward, if the traveller is penetrating from Davis strait or Bafin's bay, the view is bounded by dim misty horizon of ice, and behind him the coast strip-the ''outskirts" of Rink-is fading away just as the land fades behind the sailor who sails out to sea. No wonder the iron men of the north dread to ap- proach it and make it the scene of their tales of wonder.
 Whether this ice cap of Greenland ex- tends in an unbroken sheet from coast to coast must necessarily be a question ad- mitting of difference of opinion. The chances are all in favor of it's doing SO, for if it proceeded, as the Alpine and other mountain glaciers do, from some interior range, there could scarcely fail to be some moraine on it's surface. On the other hand, wherever it has been penetrated the same appearances present themselves, the only exception being in South Greenland, where, within short distance of the coast, few ''nunataks," " as the Eskimo call them, present them selves like islets above the surface of the vast glacier sheet. These are, however, simply peaks of the old land surface still uncovered. The rest of the country seems to have been overwhelmed by the SHOWS hardened into glacier ice, the de- cay due to the summers heat never being sufficient to counterbalance the enormous fall during the long months p1 winter. The ice rises as the interior t approached, the probabilities being tha
 after the height of land-or, rather, o
 ice-is reached it slopes away to the op
 posite shore.
 Nordenskjold, who, on the second O
 his expeditions, succeeded in penetrating
 further than any one else, believes tha
 he stopped at something over 120 mile
 from the west coast. At that spot tn ice was 5000 feet high, and still ros' gradually to the east, though no peak
 were visible. The inland ice continuet to ascend toward the interior, so that tn horizon to the east, north and south wa , terminated by an ice border almost a
 smooth as that of the ocean. Over thi surface the melting snow coursed in riv ulets, accumulated in lakes, or fell thun dering into cascades down the hug } crevasses which intersected it in ever direction. Yet, in spite of every fac being entirely against any such idea. thl 5 eminent explorer, it is understood, sti holds tenaciously to his extraordinar theory of the interior being ice bare, an
 even covered with forest.-London Telt graph.
 The Rule of the Rajahs.
 s The rajahs tax their subjects, live t splendid palaces, have their zenanas file @ with many wives, keep elephants an }; stables filled with hundreds of horses { @ noble herds, protect the game of the j. | 1oroipions for thoir own sn0rts let fipe,