The voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe; with a historical review of previous journeys along the north coast of the Old World . overing of low vegetable organisms. Theice-deserts of the Polar lands are thus the habitat of a peculiarflora, which, insignificant as it appears to be, forms howeveran important condition for the issue of the conflict which goeson here, year after year, century after century, between the sunand the ice. For the dark clay and the dark parts of plantsabsorb the warm rays of the sun better than the ice, andtherefore powerfully promote its melting. They eat themselv
The voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe; with a historical review of previous journeys along the north coast of the Old World . overing of low vegetable organisms. Theice-deserts of the Polar lands are thus the habitat of a peculiarflora, which, insignificant as it appears to be, forms howeveran important condition for the issue of the conflict which goeson here, year after year, century after century, between the sunand the ice. For the dark clay and the dark parts of plantsabsorb the warm rays of the sun better than the ice, andtherefore powerfully promote its melting. They eat themselves 136 THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. [chap. IV. down ill perpendicular cylindrical holes thirty to sixty centi-metres in depth, and from a few millimetres to a whole metrein diameter. The surface of the ice is thus destroyed andbroken up. After the melting of the snow there appears besides a numbGrof inequalities, and the clefts previously covered with a fragilesnow-bridge now gape before the wanderer where he goesforward, with their bluish-black abysses, bottomless as far aswe can depend on ocular evidence. At some places there are. VIEW FROM THE INLAND-ICE OF GREENLAND. After a drawing by S. Berggren, 23rd July, 1870. also to be found in the ice extensive shallow depressions, downwhose sides innumerable rapid streams flow in beds of azure-blue ice, often of such a volume of water as to form actualrivers. They generally debouch in a lake situated in the middleof the depression. The lake has generally an undergroundoutlet through a grotto-vault of ice several thousands of feethigh. At other places a river is to be seen, which has boreditself a hole through the ice-sheet, down which it suddenlydisappears with a roar and din which are heard far and wide,
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, bookidvoyageofvega, bookyear1882
