The Portland daily press., 1898-04-16
INTERIOR OF sPITzBERo EN-.
Sir Martin Conway Describes 1t and Starts
New Glacial The

Sir Martin Conway Describes 1t and Starts
New Glacial The 'ry.
With the aid of series of photos, Sir
Martin Conway enabled mem bers OF the
Royal Geographical Society, at Burl1ng-
ton House, last evening, to realize some
of the difficulties and dangers of arctic
exploration, says the London Standard
His account was of a second visit made
to Spitzberqen in 1897, with Mr.. K. j.
Garwood and two Norwegian seamen for
companions. Sir Martin explaiped~tha
their object was to investigate the inter
Tor of parts of the country believed to be
covered by so-called finland ice'-that
was to say, by ice sheets of the Green
land character. Both Garwood Land ami
King James Land We're described ON the
chart as covered with Finland ice.'' If
this phrase mel ely meant glaciers. so that
it might be applied to the gla ciers of any
district of snow mountains such as the
Alps or Caucasus, it was useless phrase,
and ought to be abolished Most persons
received from it different impression,
and judged it to lie descriptive of a COM
plete and continuous icy mantle enyelop-
ing whole country, as Greenland, for
instance. was enyeloped. AS long, how
ever, as flowing body of land ice was
contained within definite watersheds and
mountain ranges, it was glacier and not
an ice sheet. The juxtaposition OF no
matter how many glaciers did not form
an ice sheet, but merely glacial area. 1t
was necessary, added Sir Martin, to he
thus particular in definition, because he
wished TO show that neither Garwood
Land nor King James Land, nor, indeed,
any large part of Spitzhergen, except New
Freesland and Northeast Land, WAS coy
cred by an ice sheet They were all gla-
cial and mountain areas The discovery
of this fact was the principal geographical
result of the expedition.
The old theory that glaciers excayatcd
their beds to any considerable extent WIS
practically abandoned. Its supporters
naturally considered that the larger the
mass of ice the more vigorous would be
its eXcavating action. A great arctic ice
sheet was considered to be an extraordi-
udrlly pO~0Ilut SAChSdlUT. We DUW
know that moving land ice did not oper-
ate upon its bed, but beyond polishing
the surface OF the rock it covered, anu
cutting down convex excrescences, had
mainly conservative effect upon it. In
the case of q country like the interior of
Greenland, wholly buried under ice, the
buried land surface WAS being modelled
to very slight degree. On the other
hand, in the casa OF a glacial region,
where mountains ose above the mean
level, and where rock faces were exposed
to the rapid Genudation of all snowy re-
gions, great developments of surface for
nation were going forward. Under an
Ice sheet the forces acting on the land sur.
face were conservative; in the case of a
glacial region the acting forces were for
NATIVE. Hence the immense Importance
of clearly distinguishing between these
two types of ice clearing country. 1t fol
lowed from this theory that the distinc
ton be had endeavored to make hetweer
an ice sheet and congerles OF glaciers
was distincIi ion of the first importan &c
for under an ice sheet mons of the process
ses was going forward which were vigor-
ously proceeding in "a glacial region. The
old idea of Spitzbergen was that its inter.
ior consisted of a great icy sheet, fringeh
at the edge by a number Of boggy valleys
and green hillsides. Their explorations
had shown the utter falsity of this con-
C6pulOn.
Whether at one tire the whole island
WAS enveloped in an ice sheet which was
gradually withdrawn from the west
toward the east, or whether the west part
OF the island had merely been longer
raised above the sea than the east part
he did not attempt t. determine. The
fact, at any rate, seemed to be that the
forces of denudation had been Longer al
work. or, at any rate, more vigorously al
work, all down the west part of the is,
land, and that the resulting mountain
formation was most developed in the wes
and became continually less developed
toward the east. All down the western
region We're highly specialized mountain
forms-peaks and ranges of considerable,
abruptness and marked individuality
AS the traveller advanced eastward til,
mountains became generally more round
ed, till the original plateau form ant
even parts OF the undenuded plateau itsel
were encountered. The whole OF the mort
coast as might be expected bore eyidenc
of a more rigorous climate than district
farther south, This was specially notice,
when proceeding down Wide Bay, q
whose mouth the snow lay down TO Sc
level in the month of August, Will
twenty miles in, the snow line was al
most one thousand feet above sea level
The northern rim, therefore, might be re
garded as a separate geographical divis
ion AT the northwest angle of the islant
was a region of very bold mountains ant
large glaciers