July 2d.
UPHEAVAL OF THE GREENLAND COAST.
I have been occupied during the past two days with running a set of levels from the harbor across to the fiord and with plotting the terraces. These terraces are twenty-three in number and rise very regularly to an altitude of one hundred and ten feet above the mean tide-level. The lowest rises thirty-two feet higher than the tide, but above this they climb up with great regularity. They are composed of small pebbles rounded by water action.
GEOLOGICAL CHANGES.
Of these terraces I have frequently made mention in this journal, and their existence in all similar localities has been before remarked. They have much geological interest, as illustrating the gradual upheaval of that part of Greenland lying north of latitude 76°; and the interest attaching to them is heightened when viewed in connection with the corresponding depression which has taken place, even within the period of Christian occupation, in southern Greenland. These evidences of the sinking of the Greenland coast from about Cape York, southward, are too well known to need any comment in this place; but I may dwell, for a few moments, upon the evidences of rising of the coast here and northward. At many conspicuous points, where the current is swift and the ice is pressed down upon the land with great force and rapidity, the rocks are worn away until they are as smooth and polished as the surface of a table,—a fact which may at any time be observed by looking down through the clear water. This smoothness of the rock continues above the sea, to an elevation which I have not been able with positive accuracy to determine in any locality, but having a general correspondence to the height of the terraces at Port Foulke, which, as before observed, rise one hundred and ten feet above the sea-level. At Cairn Point the abrasion is very marked, and, where the polished line of syenitic rock leaves off and the rough rock begins, is quite clearly defined. This same condition also exists at Littleton Island (or, rather, McGary Island, which lies immediately outside of it) to an almost equally marked degree. I have before mentioned the evidences of a similar elevation of the opposite coast found in the terraced beaches of Grinnell Land.
It is curious to observe here, actually taking place before our eyes, those geological events which have transpired in southern latitudes during the glacier epoch, not only in the abrasion of the rock as seen at Cairn Point and elsewhere, but in the changes which they work in the deeper sea. In this agency the ice-foot bears a conspicuous influence. This ice-foot is but a shelf of ice, as it were, glued against the shore, and is the winter-girdle of all the Arctic coasts. It is wide or narrow as the shore slopes gently into the sea or meets it abruptly. It is usually broken away toward the close of every summer, and the masses of rock which have been hurled down upon it from the cliffs above are carried away and dropped in the sea, when the raft has loosened from the shore and drifted off, steadily melting as it floats. The amount of rock thus transported to the ocean is immense, and yet it falls far short of that which is carried by the icebergs; the rock and sand imbedded in which, as they lay in the parent glacier, being sometimes sufficient to bear them down under the weight until but the merest fragment rises above the surface. As the berg melts, the rocks and sand fall to the bottom of the ocean; and, if the place of their deposit should one day rise above the sea-level, some geological student of future ages may, perhaps, be as much puzzled to know how they came there as those of the present generation are to account for the boulders of the Connecticut valley.
July 3d.
A WALRUS HUNT.
I have had a walrus hunt and a most exciting day's sport. Much ice has broken adrift and come down the Sound, during the past few days; and, when the sun is out bright and hot, the walrus come up out of the water to sleep and bask in the warmth on the pack. Being upon the hill-top this morning to select a place for building a cairn, my ear caught the hoarse bellowing of numerous walrus; and, upon looking over the sea I observed that the tide was carrying the pack across the outer limit of the bay, and that it was alive with the beasts, which were filling the air with such uncouth noises. Their numbers appeared to be even beyond conjecture, for they extended as far as the eye could reach, almost every piece of ice being covered. There must have been, indeed, many hundreds or even thousands.
Hurrying from the hill, I called for volunteers, and quickly had a boat's crew ready for some sport. Putting three rifles, a harpoon, and a line into one of the whale-boats, we dragged it over the ice to the open water, into which it was speedily launched.