Pullman herald. [volume] (Pullman, W.T. [Wash.]) 1888-1989, 1890-11-08
reRgeNLAND's ICY MOUNTAINS
The DesoIate Scene Which Meets the
Eyes of the Hardy Explorer.

The DesoIate Scene Which Meets the
| Eyes 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, a 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 little
disappointed. The ''icy mountains Of
which Heber sang seem more or less
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 fjords
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 the
''crow's nest, y sees little of those vast
glacier fields of which he cannot fail to
have heard. But if once he crosses the
| few miles of ice shaver rocks, or bowlder
strewn valleys gay with the Arctic flow
ers, or even green with the creeping
birch, the crowberry, and the dwarf will
low, the vast 'sermiksoak" of the Es
! kimo at once faces hin.
This is the edge of the finland ice.'
This edge may be in the shape of a more
or less precipitous wall, from which the
surplus ice is being discharged into the
ford in the shape of huge bergs Or in
a quiet, reindeer dotted valley, where the
1utter of the ptarmigan or the bark of
the white fox is the only sound that dis
turbs the solitude, the inland ice NAV be
seen crawling to the sea. But once let
the explorer ascend it and the scene which
it presents to the eye is everywhere much
the same. He is on firm glacier ice
slowly moving from the interior but
how thick no man knows. Unlike the
puny glaciers of the Alps and Himalayas,
this ice is not strewn with moraine. unless
where, in passing through some glen of
the ice bare outskirts of the coast living
strip described, it has dislodged a
fragment Of rock or an over
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 its surface, unless it may be one of
those microscopic plants which cause the
red snow" or others of a similar nature,
with here and there a minute speck of
'kTyOkOmite, a 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 Baffin's
bay, the view is bounded by dim misty
horizon of ice. and behind him the coast
Strip-the ''outskirts" of Kinks 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 ii 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 adj
hitting of a difference of opinion The
chances are all in favor of its 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 its 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 summer s heat never
being sufficient to counterbalance the
enormous fall during the long months of
winter. The ice rises as the interior is
approached, the probabilities being that
after the height of land-or, rather, of
ice-is reached it slopes away to the op-
posite shore.
Nordenskjold, who, on the second Of
his expeditions, succeeded in penetrating
further than any one else, believes that
he stopped at something over 1870 miles
from the west coast At that spot the
ice was 6,000 feet high, and still rose
gradually to the east, though no peaks
were visible. The inland ice continued
to ascend toward the interior. so that the
horizon to the east, north and south was
terminated by an ice border almost as
Doth as that of the ocean. Over this
surface the melting snow coursed in riv-
uIets, accumulated in lakes, or fell thun-
dering into cascades down the huge
crevasses which intersected it in every
direction. Yet, in spite of every fact
being entirely against any such idea, this
eminent explorer, it is understood, still
holds tenaciously to his extraordinary
theory of the interior being ice bare, and
even covered with forest. London Tele
graph