Greenland

Coasts.—The coasts of Greenland are for the most part deeply indented with fjords, being intensely glaciated. The coast-line of Melville Bay (the northern part of the west coast) is to some degree an exception, though the fjords may here be somewhat filled with glaciers, and, for another example, it may be noted that Peary observed a marked contrast on the north coast. Eastward as far as Cape Morris Jesup there are precipitous headlands and islands, as elsewhere, with deep water close inshore. East of the same cape there is an abrupt change; the coast is unbroken, the mountains recede inland, and there is shoal-water for a considerable distance from the coast. Numerous islands lie off the coasts where they are indented; but these are in no case large, excepting those off the north coast, and that of Disco off the west, which is crossed by the parallel of 70° N. This island, which is separated by Waigat Strait from the Nugsuak peninsula, is lofty, and has an area of 3005 sq. m. Steenstrup in 1898 discovered in it the warmest spring known in Greenland, having a temperature of 66° F.

The unusual glaciation of the east coast is evidently owing to the north polar current carrying the ice masses from the north polar basin south-westward along the land, and giving it an entirely arctic climate down to Cape Farewell. In some parts the interior ice-covering extends down to the outer coast, while in other parts its margin is situated more inland, and the ice-bare coast-land is deeply intersected by fjords extending far into the interior, where they are blocked by enormous glaciers or “ice-currents” from the interior ice-covering which discharge masses of icebergs into them. The east coast of Greenland is in this respect highly interesting. All coasts in the world which are much intersected by deep fjords have, with very few exceptions, a western exposure, e.g. Norway, Scotland, British Columbia and Alaska, Patagonia and Chile, and even Spitsbergen and Novaya Zemlya, whose west coasts are far more indented than their east ones. Greenland forms the most prominent exception, its eastern coast being quite as much indented as its western. The reason is to be found in its geographical position, a cold ice-covered polar current running south along the land, while not far outside there is an open warmer sea, a circumstance which, while producing a cold climate, must also give rise to much precipitation, the land being thus exposed to the alternate erosion of a rough atmosphere and large glaciers. On the east coast of Baffin Land and Labrador there are similar conditions. The result is that the east coast of Greenland has the largest system of typical fjords known on the earth’s surface. Scoresby Fjord has a length of about 180 m. from the outer coast to the point where it is blocked by the glaciers, and with its numerous branches covers an enormous area. Franz Josef Fjord, with its branch King Oscar Fjord, communicating with Davy’s Sound, forms a system of fjords on a similar scale. These fjords are very deep; the greatest depth found by Ryder in Scoresby Sound was 300 fathoms, but there are certainly still greater depths; like the Norwegian fjords they have, however, probably all of them, a threshold or sill, with shallow water, near their mouths. A few soundings made outside this coast seem to indicate that the fjords continue as deep submarine valleys far out into the sea. On the west coast there are also many great fjords. One of the best known from earlier days is the great Godthaab Fjord (or Baals Revier) north of 64° N. Along the east coast there are many high mountains, exceeding 6000 and 7000 ft. in height. One of the highest peaks hitherto measured is at Tiningnertok, on the Lindenov Fjord, in 60° 35′ N., which is 7340 ft. high. At the bottom of Mogens Heinesen Fjord, 62° 30′ N., the peaks are 6300 ft., and in the region of Umanak, 63° N., they even exceed 6600 ft. At Umivik, where Nansen began his journey across the inland ice, the highest peak projecting through the ice-covering was Gamel’s Nunatak, 6440 ft., in 64° 34′ N. In the region of Angmagssalik, which is very mountainous, the mountains rise to 6500 ft., the most prominent peak being Ingolf’s Fjeld, in 66° 20′ N., about 6000 ft., which is seen from far out at sea, and forms an excellent landmark. This is probably the Blaaserk (i.e. Blue Sark or blue shirt) of the old Norsemen, their first landmark on their way from Iceland to the Öster Bygd, the present Julianehaab district, on the south-west coast of Greenland. A little farther north the coast is much lower, rising only to heights of 2000 ft., and just north of 67° 10′ N. only to 500 ft. or less.20 The highest mountains near the inner branches of Scoresby Fjord are about 7000 ft. The Petermann Spitze, near the shore of Franz Josef Fjord, measured by Payer and found to be 11,000 ft., has hitherto been considered to be the highest mountain in Greenland, but according to Nathorst it “is probably only two-thirds as high as Payer supposed,” perhaps between 8000 and 9000 ft.

Along the west coast of Greenland the mountains are generally not quite so high, but even here peaks of 5000 and 6000 ft. are not uncommon. As a whole the coasts are unusually mountainous, and Greenland forms in this respect an interesting exception, as there is no other known land of such a size so filled along its coasts on all sides with high mountains and deep fjords and valleys.

The Inland Ice.—The whole interior of Greenland is completely covered by the so-called inland ice, an enormous glacier forming a regular shield-shaped expanse of snow and glacier ice, and burying all valleys and mountains far below its surface. Its area is about 715,400 sq. m., and it is by far the greatest glacier of the northern hemisphere. Only occasionally there emerge lofty rocks, isolated but not completely covered by the ice-cap; such rocks are known as nunataks (an Eskimo word). The inland ice rises in the interior to a level of 9000, and in places perhaps 10,000 ft. or more, and descends gradually by extremely gentle slopes towards the coasts or the bottom of the fjords on all sides, discharging a great part of its yearly drainage or surplus of precipitation in the form of icebergs in the fjords, the so-called ice-fjords, which are numerous both on the west and on the east coast. These icebergs float away, and are gradually melted in the sea, the temperature of which is thus lowered by cold stored up in the interior of Greenland. The last remains of these icebergs are met with in the Atlantic south of Newfoundland. The surface of the inland ice forms in a transverse section from the west to the east coast an extremely regular curve, almost approaching an arc of a wide circle, which along Nansen’s route has its highest ridge somewhat nearer the east than the west coast. The same also seems to be the case farther south. The curve shows, however, slight irregularities in the shape of undulations. The angle of the slope decreases gradually from the margin of the inland ice, where it may be 1° or more, towards the interior, where it is 0°. In the interior the surface of the inland ice is composed of dry snow which never melts, and is constantly packed and worked smooth by the winds. It extends as a completely even plain of snow, with long, almost imperceptible, undulations or waves, at a height of 7000 to 10,000 ft., obliterating the features of the underlying land, the mountains and valleys of which are completely interred. Over the deepest valleys of the land in the interior this ice-cap must be at least 6000 or 7000 ft. thick or more. Approaching the coasts from the interior, the snow of the surface gradually changes its structure. At first it becomes more coarse-grained, like the Firn Schnee of the Alps, and is moist by melting during the summer. Nearer the coast, where the melting on the surface is more considerable, the wet snow freezes hard during the winter and is more or less transformed into ice, on the surface of which rivers and lakes are formed, the water of which, however, soon finds its way through crevasses and holes in the ice down to its under surface, and reaches the sea as a sub-glacial river. Near its margin the surface of the inland ice is broken up by numerous large crevasses, formed by the outward motion of the glacier covering the underlying land. The steep ice-walls at the margin of the inland ice show, especially where the motion of the ice is slow, a distinct striation, which indicates the strata of annual precipitation with the intervening thin seams of dust (Nordenskiöld’s kryokonite). This is partly dust blown on to the surface of the ice from the ice-bare coast-land and partly the dust of the atmosphere brought down by the falling snow and accumulated on the surface of the glacier’s covering by the melting during the summer. In the rapidly moving glaciers of the ice-fjords this striation is not distinctly visible, being evidently obliterated by the strong motion of the ice masses.

The ice-cap of Greenland must to some extent be considered as a viscous mass, which, by the vertical pressure in its interior, is pressed outwards and slowly flows towards the coasts, just as a mass of pitch placed on a table and left to itself will in the course of time flow outwards towards all sides. The motion of the outwards-creeping inland ice will naturally be more independent of the configurations of the underlying land in the interior, where its thickness is so enormous, than near the margin where it is thinner. Here the ice converges into the valleys and moves with increasing velocity in the form of glaciers into the fjords, where they break off as icebergs. The drainage of the interior of Greenland is thus partly given off in the solid form of icebergs, partly by the melting of the snow and ice on the surface of the ice-cap, especially near its western margin, and to some slight extent also by the melting produced on its under side by the interior heat of the earth. After Professor Amund Helland had, in July 1875, discovered the amazingly great velocity, up to 64¾ ft. in twenty-four hours, with which the glaciers of Greenland move into the sea, the margin of the inland ice and its glaciers was studied by several expeditions. K. J. V. Steenstrup during several years, Captain Hammer in 1879-1880, Captain Ryder in 1886-1887, Dr Drygalski in 1891-1893,21 and several American expeditions in later years, all examined the question closely. The highest known velocities of glaciers were measured by Ryder in the Upernivik glacier (in 73° N.), where, between the 13th and 14th of August of 1886, he found a velocity of 125 ft. in twenty-four hours, and an average velocity during several days of 101 ft. (Danish).22 It was, however, ascertained that there is a great difference between the velocities of the glaciers in winter and in summer. For instance, Ryder found that the Upernivik glacier had an average velocity of only 33 ft. in April 1887. There seem to be periodical oscillations in the extension of the glaciers and the inland ice similar to those that have been observed on the glaciers of the Alps and elsewhere. But these interesting phenomena have not hitherto been subject to systematic observation, and our knowledge of them is therefore uncertain. Numerous glacial marks, however, such as polished striated rocks, moraines, erratic blocks, &c., prove that the whole of Greenland, even the small islands and skerries outside the coast, has once been covered by the inland ice.

Numerous raised beaches and terraces, containing shells of marine mollusca, &c., occur along the whole coast of Greenland, and indicate that the whole of this large island has been raised, or the sea has sunk, in post-glacial times, after the inland ice covered its now ice-bare outskirts. In the north along the shores of Smith Sound these traces of the gradual upheaval of the land, or sinking of the sea, are very marked; but they are also very distinct in the south, although not found so high above sea-level, which seems to show that the upheaval has been greater in the north. In Uvkusigsat Fjord (72° 20′ N.) the highest terrace is 480 ft. above the sea.23 On Manitsok (65° 30′ N.) the highest raised beach was 360 ft. above the sea.24 In the Isortok Fjord (67° 11′ N.) the highest raised beach is 380 ft. above sea-level.25 In the Ameralik Fjord (64° 14′ N.) the highest marine terrace is about 340 ft. above sea-level, and at Ilivertalik (63° 14′ N.), north of Fiskernaes, the highest terrace is about 325 ft. above the sea. At Kakarsuak, near the Björnesund (62° 50′ N.), a terrace is found at 615 ft. above the sea, but it is doubtful whether this is of marine origin.26 In the Julianehaab district, between 60° and 61° N., the highest marine terraces are found at about 160 ft. above the sea.27 The highest marine terrace observed in Scoresby Fjord, on the east coast, was 240 ft. above sea-level.28 There is a common belief that during quite recent times the west and south-west coast, within the Danish possessions, has been sinking. Although there are many indications which may make this probable, none of them can be said to be quite decisive.29

[Geology.—So far as made out, the structure of explored Greenland is as follows:

1. Laurentian gneiss forms the greatest mass of the exposed rocks of the country bare of ice. They are found on both sides of Smith Sound, rising to heights of 2000 ft., and underlie the Miocene and Cretaceous rocks of Disco Island, Noursoak Peninsula and the Oolites of Pendulum Island in East Greenland. Ancient schists occur on the east coast south of Angmagssalik, and basalts and schists are found in Scoresby Fjord. It is possible that some of these rocks are also of Huronian age, but it is doubtful whether the rocks so designated by the geologists of the “Alert” and “Discovery” expedition are really the rocks so known in Canada, or are a continuous portion of the fundamental or oldest gneiss of the north-west of Scotland and the western isles.

2. Silurian.—Upper Silurian, having a strong relation to the Wenlock group of Britain, but with an American facies, and Lower Silurian, with a succession much the same as in British North America, are found on the shores of Smith Sound, and Nathorst has discovered them in King Oscar Fjord, but not as yet so far south as the Danish possessions.

3. Devonian rocks are believed to occur in Igaliko and Tunnudiorbik Fjords, in S.W. Greenland, but as they are unfossiliferous sandstone, rapidly disintegrating, this cannot be known. It is, however, likely that this formation occurs in Greenland, for in Dana Bay, Captain Feilden found a species of Spirifera and Productus mesolobus or costatus, though it is possible that these fossils represent the “Ursa stage” (Heer) of the Lower Carboniferous. A few Devonian forms have also been recorded from the Parry Archipelago, and Nathorst has shown the existence of Old Red Sandstone facies of Devonian in Traill Island, Geographical Society Island, Ymer Island and Gauss Peninsula.

4. Carboniferous.—In erratic blocks of sandstone, found on the Disco shore of the Waigat have been detected a Sigillaria and a species of either Pecopteris or Gleichenia, perhaps of this age; and probably much of the extreme northern coast of Ellesmere Land, and therefore, in all likelihood, the opposite Greenland shore, contains a clearly developed Carboniferous Limestone fauna, identical with that so widely distributed over the North American continent, and referable also to British and Spitsbergen species. Of the Coal Measures above these, if they occur, we know nothing at present. Capt. Feilden notes as suggestive that, though the explorers have not met with this formation on the northern shores of Greenland, yet it was observed that a continuation of the direction of the known strike of the limestones of Feilden peninsula, carried over the polar area, passes through the neighbourhood of Spitsbergen, where the formation occurs, and contains certain species identical with those of the Grinnell Land rocks of this horizon. The facies of the fossils is, according to Mr Etheridge, North American and Canadian, though many of the species are British. The corals are few in number, but the Molluscoida (Polyzoa) are more numerous in species and individuals. No Secondary rocks have been discovered in the extreme northern parts of West Greenland, but they are present on the east and west coasts in more southerly latitudes than Smith Sound.

5. Jurassic.—These do not occur on the west coast, but on the east coast the German expedition discovered marls and sandstones on Kuhn Island, resembling those of the Russian Jurassic, characterized by the presence of the genus Aucella, Olcostephanus Payeri, O. striolaris, Belemnites Panderianus, B. volgensis, B. absolutus, and a Cyprina near to C. syssolae. On the south coast of the same island are coarse-grained, brownish micaceous and light-coloured calcareous sandstone and marls, containing fossils, which render it probable that they are of the same age as the coal-bearing Jurassic rocks of Brora (Scotland) and the Middle Dogger of Yorkshire. There is also coal on Kuhn Island.

The Danish expeditions of 1899-1900 have added considerably to our knowledge of the Jurassic rocks of East Greenland. Rhaetic-Lias plants have been described by Dr Hartz from Cape Stewart and Vardeklöft. Dr Madsen has recognized fossils that correspond with those from the Inferior oolite, Cornbrash and Callovian of England. Upper Kimmeridge and Portlandian beds also occur.

6. Cretaceous.—Beds of this age, consisting of sandstones and coal, are found on the northern coast of Disco Island and the southern side of the Noursoak Peninsula, the beds in the former locality, “the Kome strata” of Nordenskiöld, being the oldest. They reach 1000 ft. in thickness, occupying undulating hollows in the underlying gneiss, and dip towards the Noursoak Peninsula at 20°, when the overlying Atanakerdluk strata come in. Both these series contain numerous plant remains, evergreen oaks, magnolias, aralias, &c., and seams of lignite (coal), which is burnt; but in neither occur the marine beds of the United States. Still, the presence of dicotyledonous leaves, such as Magnolia alternans, in the Atanakerdluk strata, proves their close alliance with the Dakota series of the United States. The underlying Kome beds are not present in the American series. They are characterized by fine cycads (Zamites arcticus and Glossozamites Hoheneggeri), which also occur in the Urgonian strata of Wernsdorff.

7. Miocene.—This formation, one of the most widely spread in polar lands, though the most local in Greenland, is also the best known feature in its geology. It is limited to Disco Island, and perhaps to a small part of the Noursoak Peninsula, and the neighbouring country, and consists of numerous thin beds of sandstone, shale and coal—the sideritic shale containing immense quantities of leaves, stems, fruit, &c., as well as some insects, and the coal pieces of retinite. The study of these plant and insect remains shows that forests containing a vegetation very similar to that of California and the southern United States, in some instances even the species of trees being all but identical, flourished in 70° N. during geological periods comparatively recent. These beds, as well as the Cretaceous series, from which they are as yet only imperfectly distinguished, are associated with sheets of basalt, which penetrate them in great dikes, and in some places, owing to the wearing away of the softer sedimentary rocks, stand out in long walls running across the beds. These Miocene strata have not been found farther north on the Greenland shore than the region mentioned; but in Lady Franklin Bay, on the Grinnell Land side of Smith Sound, they again appear, so that the chances are they will be found on the opposite coast, though doubtless the great disintegration Greenland has undergone and is undergoing has destroyed many of the softer beds of fossiliferous rocks. On the east coast, more particularly in Hochstetter Foreland, the Miocene beds again appear, and we may add that there are traces of them even on the west coast, between Sonntag Bay and Foulke Fjord, at the entrance to Smith Sound. It thus appears that since early Tertiary times there has been a great change in the climate of Greenland.

Nathorst has suggested that the whole of Greenland is a “horst,” in the subordinate folds of which, as well as in the deeper “graben,” the younger rocks are preserved, often with a covering of Tertiary or later lava flows.30—J. A. H.]

Minerals.—Native iron was found by Nordenskiöld at Ovifak, on Disco Island, in 1870, and brought to Sweden (1871) as meteorites. The heaviest nodule weighed over 20 tons. Similar native iron has later been found by K. J. V. Steenstrup in several places on the west coast enclosed as smaller or larger nodules in the basalt. This iron has very often beautiful Widmannstätten figures like those of iron meteorites, but it is obviously of telluric origin.31 In 1895 Peary found native iron at Cape York; since John Ross’s voyage in 1818 it has been known to exist there, and from it the Eskimo got iron for their weapons. In 1897 Peary brought the largest nodule to New York; it was estimated to weigh nearly 100 tons. This iron is considered by several of the first authorities on the subject to be of meteoric origin,32 but no evidence hitherto given seems to prove decisively that it cannot be telluric. That the nodules found were lying on gneissic rock, with no basaltic rocks in the neighbourhood, does not prove that the iron may not originate from basalt, for the nodules may have been transported by the glaciers, like other erratic blocks, and will stand erosion much longer than the basalt, which may long ago have disappeared. This iron seems, however, in several respects to be unlike the celebrated large nodules of iron found by Nordenskiöld at Ovifak, but appears to resemble much more closely the softer kind of iron nodules found by Steenstrup in the basalt;33 it stands exposure to the air equally well, and has similar Widmannstätten figures very sharp, as is to be expected in such a large mass. It contains, however, more nickel and also phosphorus. A few other minerals may be noticed, and some have been worked to a small extent—graphite is abundant, particularly near Upernivik; cryolite is found almost exclusively at Ivigtut; copper has been observed at several places, but only in nodules and laminae of limited extent; and coal of poor quality is found in the districts about Disco Bay and Umanak Fjord. Steatite or soapstone has long been used by the natives for the manufacture of lamps and vessels.

Climate.—The climate is very uncertain, the weather changing suddenly from bright sunshine (when mosquitoes often swarm) to dense fog or heavy falls of snow and icy winds. At Julianehaab in the extreme south-west the winter is not much colder than that of Norway and Sweden in the same locality; but its mean temperature for the whole year probably approximates to that on the Norwegian coast 600 m. farther north. The climate of the interior has been found to be of a continental character, with large ranges of temperature, and with an almost permanent anti-cyclonic region over the interior of the inland ice, from which the prevailing winds radiate towards the coasts. On the 64th parallel the mean annual temperature at an elevation of 6560 ft. is supposed to be −13° F., or reduced to sea-level 5° F. The mean annual temperature in the interior farther north is supposed to be −10° F. reduced to sea-level. The mean temperature of the warmest month, July, in the interior should be, reduced to sea-level, on the 64th parallel 32° F., and that of the coldest month, January, about −22° F., while in North Greenland it is probably −40° reduced to sea-level. Here we may probably find the lowest temperatures of the northern hemisphere. The interior of Greenland contains both summer and winter a pole of cold, situated in the opposite longitude to that of Siberia, with which it is well able to compete in extreme severity. On Nansen’s expedition temperatures of about −49° F. were experienced during the nights in the beginning of September, and the minimum during the winter may probably sink to −90° F. in the interior of the inland ice. These low temperatures are evidently caused by the radiation of heat from the snow-surface in the rarefied air in the interior. The daily range of temperature is therefore very considerable, sometimes amounting to 40°. Such a range is elsewhere found only in deserts, but the surface of the inland ice may be considered to be an elevated desert of snow.34 The climate of the east coast is on the whole considerably more arctic than that of the west coast on corresponding latitudes; the land is much more completely snow-covered, and the snow-line goes considerably lower. The probability also is that there is more precipitation, and that the mean temperatures are lower.35 The well-known strangely warm and dry föhn-winds of Greenland occur both on the west and the east coast; they are more local than was formerly believed, and are formed by cyclonic winds passing either over mountains or down the outer slope of the inland ice.36 Mirage and similar phenomena and the aurora are common.

Fauna and Flora.—It was long a common belief that the fauna and flora of Greenland were essentially European, a circumstance which would make it probable that Greenland has been separated by sea from America during a longer period of time than from Europe. The correctness of this hypothesis may, however, be doubted. The land mammals of Greenland are decidedly more American than European; the musk-ox, the banded lemming (Cuniculus torquatus), the white polar wolf, of which there seems to have been a new invasion recently round the northern part of the country to the east coast, the Eskimo and the dog—probably also the reindeer—have all come from America, while the other land mammals, the polar bear, the polar fox, the Arctic hare, the stoat (Mustela erminea), are perfectly circumpolar forms. The species of seals and whales are, if anything, more American than European, and so to some extent are the fishes. The bladder-nose seal (Cystophora cristata), for instance, may be said to be a Greenland-American species, while a Scandinavian species, such as the grey seal (Halichoerus grypus), appears to be very rare both in Greenland and America. Of the sixty-one species of birds breeding in Greenland, eight are European-Asiatic, four are American, and the rest circumpolar or North Atlantic and North Pacific in their distribution.37 About 310 species of vascular plants are found, of which about forty species are American, forty-four European-Asiatic, fifteen endemic, and the rest common both to America and Europe or Asia. We thus see that the American and the European-Asiatic elements of the flora are nearly equivalent; and if the flora of Arctic North America were better known, the number of plants common to America might be still more enlarged.38

In the south, a few goats, sheep, oxen and pigs have been introduced. The whaling industry was formerly prolific off the west coast but decayed when the right whale nearly disappeared. The white whale fishery of the Eskimo, however, continued, and sealing is important; walruses are also caught and sometimes narwhal. There are also important fisheries for cod, caplin, halibut, red fish (Sebastes) and nepisak (Cyclopterus lumpus); a shark (Somniosus microcephalus) is taken for the oil from its liver; and sea-trout are found in the streams and small lakes of the south. On land reindeer were formerly hunted, to their practical extinction in the south, but in the districts of Godthaab, Sukkertoppen and Holstensborg there are still many reindeer. The eider-duck, guillemot and other sea-birds are in some parts valuable for food in winter, and so is the ptarmigan. Eggs of sea-birds are collected and eider-down. Valuable fur is obtained from the white and blue fox, the skin of the eider-duck and the polar bear.

At Tasiusak (73° 22′ N.), the most northern civilized settlement in the world, gardening has been attempted without success, but several plants do well in forcing frames. At Umanak (70° 40′ N.) is the most northern garden in the world. Broccoli and radishes grow well, turnips (but not every year), lettuce and chervil succeed sometimes, but parsley cannot be reared. At Jacobshavn (69° 12′ N.), only some 15 m. from the inland ice, gardening succeeds very well; broccoli and lettuce grow willingly; the spinach produces large leaves; chervil, pepper-grass, leeks, parsley and turnips grow very well; the radishes are sown and gathered twice during the summer (June to August). In the south, in the Julianehaab district, even flowering plants, such as aster, nemophilia and mignonette, are cultivated, and broccoli, spinach, sorrel, chervil, parsley, rhubarb, turnips, lettuce, radishes grow well. Potatoes give fair results when they are taken good care of, carrots grow to a thickness of 1½ in., while cabbage does poorly. Strawberries and cucumbers have been ripened in a forcing frame. In the “Kongespeil” (King’s mirror) of the 13th century it is stated that the old Norsemen tried in vain to raise barley.

The wild vegetation in the height of summer is, in favourable situations, profuse in individual plants, though scanty in species. The plants are of the usual arctic type, and identical with or allied to those found in Lapland or on the summits of the highest British hills. Forest there is none in all the country. In the north, where the lichen-covered or ice-shaven rocks do not protrude, the ground is covered with a carpet of mosses, creeping dwarf willows, crow-berries and similar plants, while the flowers most common are the andromeda, the yellow poppy, pedicularis, pyrola, &c. besides the flowering mosses; but in South Greenland there is something in the shape of bush, the dwarf birches even rising a few feet in very sheltered places, the willows may grow higher than a man, and the vegetation is less arctic and more abundant.