In Connection With This District There Is A
Remarkable Fact; That By The Agency Of Subterranean Forces, A Large
Portion Of Norway And Sweden Is Being Slowly Upheaved.
While
Greenland, on the west coast, as gradually sinks into the sea,
Norway rises at the rate of about four feet in a century.
In
Greenland, the sinking is so well known that the natives never build
close to the water's edge, and the Moravian missionaries more than
once have had to move farther inland the poles on which their boats
are rested.
Our Phantom Ship stands fairly now along the western coast of
Greenland into Davis Straits. We observe that upon this western
coast there is, by a great deal, less ice than on the eastern. That
is a rule generally. Not only the configuration of the straits and
bays, but also the earth's rotation from west to east, causes the
currents here to set towards the west, and wash the western coasts,
while they act very little on the eastern. We steer across Davis
Strait, among "an infinite number of great countreys and islands of
yce;" there, near the entrance, we find Hudson Strait, which does
not now concern us. Islands probably separate this well-known
channel from Frobisher Strait to the north of it, yet unexplored.
Here let us recall to mind the fleet of fifteen sail, under Sir
Martin Frobisher, in 1578, tossing about and parting company among
the ice. Let us remember how the crew of the Anne Frances, in that
expedition, built a pinnace when their vessel struck upon a rock,
stock, although they wanted main timber and nails.
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