EXPLORATION OF GREENLAND.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XX, Issue 1429, 15 February 1888, Page 5

EXPLORATION OF GREENLAND.

Tn the September number of the " Bulletin" of tho American Geographical Society, Mr R. E. Peary gives a detailed account of his journey, iv the summer and autumn of last year, into tho interior of Greenland. Ha entered in the neighbourhood of Disco Island, considerably further nortty th n the starting point chosen by Nordenskjold for his expedition. Mr Peary's experiences were somewhat similar to those of Nordenskjold. His course throughout the journey was due east. He only reached 100 miles from the edge of the ice-blink or interior ice, his highest elevation being 7525 feet. Mr Peary sums up his observations of the character of the interior ice. The coastline shows a great diversity of features, dependent upon the altitude, the season, and the elevation and configuration of the adjacent mountains. Whenever the ice projects down a valley in a long tongue or stream, the edges contract aod shrink away from the warmer rocks on each side, leaving a deep canon between, usually occupied by a glacier ; and the upper surfaces, disintegrated by the reflecfed heat of the mountain above, and shattered by the daily change of temperature more perhaps than by the forward flow, presents a chaotic labyrinth of crevasses, gullies, and rugged pinnacles, increasing in magnitude in direct; proportion to the length of the tongue and its approach to the sea-level. As to the features of the interior beyond the coastline, the surface of the " ice-blink " near the margin is a succession of rounded hummocks, steepest and highest on their landward sides, which are sometimes precipitous. Further in these hummocks merge into long flat swells, which in turn decrease in heiarht towards tb.9 interior, until at la3fc a flat gently rising plain is reached, wh'ch doubtless becomes ulti mately level. In passing; from the iceblink (o the remote interior, from one to five disiinct zones may be noted, the number and width varying with tho season, the latitude, and the elevation. Tn winter the entire surface is undoubtedly covered with a deep, uubroken layer of fine dry saow. Ldte in the spring the warmih of the sun at mid-day softens the sorfece of the snow along the land borders of the ice, and this freezes at night, forming a light crust. Gradually this crust extends up the interior, and with the advance of the season the snow along the border of the " ice-blink " becomes saturated with water. A little later the zone of slush follows the zone of crust into the inferior, the snow along the border of the ice-blink melts entirely, forming pools in the depressions, and streams which cut deep gullies iv tho ice ; water cavities form ; old crevasses open, and new ones appear. This zone rapidly widens, and extends into the interior in the footsteps of the others, and behind it the immediate border of the ice gets ragged and soiled ; pebbles, boulders, and moraines crop out of it 3 melting surface, and by the end of the Arctic summer it is disintegrated and shattered by the heat, and eroded by the streams, into impassable roughness. Mr Peary gives some useful hints as to the best modes of travelling over the ice, which, if followed, he believes would without any difficulty take the explorer to the east coast.