Geographical Notes

Abstract

LIEUT. GREELY has been lecturing in Scotland on the Arctic Expedition of which he was the commander. At Dundee, on Monday night, having described the retreat from Discovery Harbour, Lady Franklin Bay, he went on to speak of the results of the Expedition, which could be done only in a general manner. The temperature observations, he remarked, were mainly important in determining the fact that Grinnell Land had the lowest mean temperature in the globe, about 4° F., or 20° C. below zero. This was in accordance with their expectations. The tidal observations, only roughly reduced by him at Conger, confirmed the work of 1875–76, but a large number of simultaneous readings at seven special stations in the Polar Sea, Robeson and Kennedy Channels, should enable tidal experts to determine quite accurately the shape and direction of the tidal wave, an important element in the theoretical determination of the configuration of lands and sea-bottom to the north. In Grinnell Land the discovery of coal not only at various points along the sea-coast, but at others in the interior, proved conclusively the changed climatic condition, as did the fossil forest found near Cape Baird in 81° 30′ N. Discoveries of Eskimo remains were of interest as showing the possible extent of this immigration of a new race into the Polar Basin. The Lieutenant next spoke of geographical discoveries. The furthest point seen by Beaumont was Cape Britannia, nearly 50 miles beyond the extreme point actually attained by that heroic officer. From Britannia Island Lieut. Lockwood and Sergeant Brainard pushed on 100 miles further, and passed a day and a half at Lockwood Island, the furthest point by land or sea ever attained by civilised man, in 83° 24′ N., 40° 46′ W. From an elevation of nearly 3000 feet it was evident that no land existed within a radius of sixty miles to the north or north-westward, but to the north-east the Greenland coast yet trended, ending to the eye at Cape Washington in 83° 35′ N. To Greenland was thus added 125 miles of new coast excluding the fiord lines, and from Cape May the mainland was carried a degree of latitude to the northward. In carrying Greenland 10° of longitude further to the eastward, Lieut. Lockwood left but, 16° for his successors to fill in. The new land is composed of high precipitous promontories along the coast, and equally broken country inland, in which but three glaciers were seen, none discharging. It was evident that the inland ice-cap of Greenland stopped far to the southward of the 82nd parallel. In short, there existed from Robeson and Kennedy Channels, westward to Greely Fiord and the Polar Sea, a series of fertile valleys clothed with vegetation of luxuriant growth, whereon were large herds of musk oxen. He desired to say a few words as to his discoveries concerning the much-talked-of palæocrystic ice, especially the floebergs from 100 to 1000 feet thick. The opinion advanced by Sir G. Nares that this ice formed over the Arctic Ocean was not borne out by facts, and he could not commit himself to the judgment that this sea was for ever unnavigable, for they knew that a quantity of the ice changed from year to year, and little of it was seen by Lieut. Lockwood to the northward of Cape May. Dr. Moss was certainly correct as to the universality of stratification in this ancient ice, and he concurred in the opinion that its salinity was due to effiorescence and infiltration, There was no doubt in his mind that these floes were simply detachments of slowly-moving glacial ice-caps from an ice-covered land in the neighbourhood of the Pole. Lieut. Lockwood found small floebergs, perhaps 100 to 200 feet thick, detached from the adjacent ice-caps. In Kane Sea he visited a floeberg a third of a mile wide, a quarter of a mile long, and from a fifth to a sixth of a mile thick. The proof as to its terrestrial origin no one would dispute; on its surface were two valleys about 30 feet deep, along which were the medial moraines of the glacier—fully 100 large stones polished and worn smooth in places by the parent ice. He thought it doubtful whether such an ice-cap increased by more than three or four inches yearly, so that from 3000 to 4000 years might easily have elapsed since the incipient birth of the berg in question. Lieut. Greely advocated future Arctic exploration in the direction of Franz Josef Land.