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VII.—Account of an Expedition to Greenland in the year 1870

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

A. E. Nordenskiöld
A. E. Nordenskiöld
Affiliation:
Foreign Correspondent Geol. Soc. Lond., etc., etc., etc.
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Extract

Before proceeding to give an account of these changes in the fauna of Greenland, I wish to draw attention to the possibility which exists in these parts of obtaining a comparison between the units of geological and historical chronology, that is—if by collecting observations and reports from many different localities, it be possible to determine certain limits for the velocity with which the border of the inland ice moves. One may arrive at the lower limit from the following considerations. The breadth of the slip of border-land at Auleitsiviksfjord is about 60 miles, or 350,000 ft. The annual retreat can, of course, never exceed the thickness of the covering that yearly melts, divided by the sine of the inclination of the icy surface, which in the places passed by us was nowhere less than 30°.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Geological Magazine , Volume 9 , Issue 99 , September 1872 , pp. 409 - 427
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1872

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References

page 409 note 1 Estimated at right angles to the surface of the ice. The annexed cut shows this more clearly. If G is the surface of the ice in e.g. 1870, G′ and the same surface in 1871, then AG′ is the thickness of the layer that has melted; and the distance the ice has receded is=AG′: Sin V. The angle V is, of course, determined by the relation between the velocity of melting and the velocity with which the ice flows out of the higher parts of the glacier.

page 410 note 1 Of course one finds in many places, at about the level of the sea, modern deposits, with sub-fossil shells, identical with forms now living. From these formations those of which we are now speaking differ, by the great age of these latter, and a very different type of the shell-remains found therein. This is especially the case with the shell-deposits at Pattorfik, which appear to me to belong to the earliest part of the glacial period of Greenland. A very considerable but lately formed bank of shell-earth, with bones of Whales and Walruses alternating with beds of sea-weed, occurs at Saitok, at the mouth of Disko-fjord. Unfortunately we had only time to investigate it cursorily.

page 411 note 1 Krantz in his work speaks of fossil shells at Godthaab, which are nowhere else found in these parts.

page 415 note 1 The views we got of the land inwards from a high mountain near Kaja showed, however, clearly, that the often repeated story of a strait passing completely across Greenland has arisen from a misunderstanding of the Greenlanders' accounts of the long narrow fjord. We received from the Greenlanders at Auleiteiviksfjord a similar account of the southern arm of that fjord; but on questioning them more closely, it appeared that they only meant that the distance to the extremity of the fjord was, according to their notions, immensely great. Krantz (in the middle of the last century) speaks of the fjord as quite full of ice. It was then so long before Giesecke's time, when, according to Brown, “this inlet was quite open for boats” (Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc, xxvii. p. 684.)

page 418 note 1 Stone implements of various kinds were collected and purchased by us at several other places, so that the collection we brought home consisted of above 1000 specimens. Dr. Öberg made the richest harvest at Kikertak.

page 418 note 2 In Brewsters Edinburgh Encyclopædia, vol. x., pp. 481–502, under the word “Greenland,” is an article written by Giesecke, containing, among other things, some short notices of the mineralogy of that country. There is also a work by him on Cryolite in Edinburgh Philo. Journal, vi., 1822.

page 418 note 3 Giesecke's Journal. Heer's Flora Fossilis Arctica, p. 7.

page 418 note 4 The above-mentioned article in Brewster's Edinburgh Encyclopædia, p. 493.

page 419 note 1 Mr. Obrik's collections were given partly to the University Museum at Copenhagen, partly to Capt. M'Clintock, who, on his return in 1859, passed Disko, and, on returning home, presented them to the Royal Society in Dublin, the same institution to which Capt. Colomb had presented his collections. Capt. Inglefield's collections were given partly to the Geological Survey in London; Dr. Walker's and Dr. Lyall's (from the eastern side of Disko, near the surface of the sea) to the Botanical Museum at Kew; Prof. Torell's to the National Museum at Stockholm; Mr. Whymper's and Mr. Brown's to the British Museum. The collections from Spitzbergen and of the expedition of 1870 will be divided between the Museums of Stockholm and Gottenburg.

page 419 note 2 On this journey, see Osw. Heer, “Contributions to the Fossil Flora of North Greenland, being a Description of the Plants Collected by Mr. Edward Whymper during the Summer of 1867.”—Phil. Transactions of Roy. Soc, vol. 159, part ii., p. 446. 1870.

page 421 note 1 Scoresby's collections from these parts seem to have been lost. On the other hand the last German expedition to East Greenland brought back collections of plant impressions which have also been placed for investigation in the hands of Prof. Osw. Heer.

page 421 note 2 The agreement between the basalt formations of Greenland and the British Islands, both aa regards the character of the rocks and the age of the beds, seems to be perfect.

page 423 note 1 Some of these beds (at Puilasok and Sinnifik) nearest Godhavn are however more recent than the basalt formation, i.e. stratified between, not under, the rock of the basalt formation.

page 424 note 1 I have preserved this name as used in Greenland as a common denomination for the Cretaceous formation, dolerite, diabase, basalt, the Tertiary strata included in basalt, as also the strata at Sinnifik and Puilasok, probably deposited shortly after the cessation of the eruption of the basalt.

page 425 note 1 Fossils really belonging to the Coal period have since (Expedition of 1871) been found by Dr. Nauckhofl, at Kudliset.

page 426 note 1 As stated above, the coal-beds probably do not belong to the under, but to the upper Cretaceous (the Atane beds).