THE GLACIERS OF GREENLAND. 7 



of true day. A few foxes ventured near our tracks, and some 

 crows winged their way landward, but these were all the signs of 

 animal life that gave movement to the landscape. About two 

 miles from the ice front a great pyramidal rock mountain or 

 nunatak split the glacial stream, causing it to swell into gently 

 rising waves and crests, which mounted terracelike one above 

 the other, without, however, materially breaking the continuity 

 of the surface. We found progression over this billowy surface 

 slow and fatiguing ; it was difficult to hold the toboggan in posi- 

 tion, as the steel runners gained no purchase upon the adamant 

 polish of the ice. It swayed from side to side, undulating like the 

 fins of a fish, and keeping us in a constant state of adjustment. 

 As the slope increased at an elevation of about fourteen hundred 

 feet, crevasses gradually took the place of the fissure splits, and 

 it was found advisable to make use of the rope. We tied our- 

 selves together in single line, keeping about twelve feet apart. 

 There were few crevasses of greater width than the length of our 

 toboggan, and most of these were of insignificant depth, yet there 

 was enough danger in them to warrant a sharp lookout. The 

 snow bridges were particularly treacherous, and their presence 

 was sometimes only made known through an unexpected plunge. 

 Cautiously avoiding these so far as it was possible, and the nu- 

 merous ugly holes which only too frequently interrupted our 

 course, we finally reached the basin, eighteen hundred feet above 

 the sea, out of which the glacier emerges. We had accomplished 

 our mission ; the great glacier lay all below ns, and above were 

 only the sky and the upper snow fields which tirelessly fade off 

 to unite with the sky. 



A pleasanter ice party than this one can hardly be conceived. 

 With a temperature that was neither warm nor cold, and with 

 just sufficient point in it to give to it that exhilarating quality 

 which impels to work ; with a lingering midnight sun sending 

 its warm illumination through a seemingly endless rift of clouds 

 and bergs ; a mountain and ocean panorama of almost matchless 

 grandeur around you ; a solitude immeasurable and undefinable 

 these are the elements which united in an exercise to make it 

 forever memorable. 



A few days alter this first experience we were called upon to 

 do a piece of glacial work the memory of which, unfortunately, 

 associates itself with one of those sad incidents of travel which 

 are seemingly destined, from time to time, to break upon the 

 rugged path of exploration. When all but ready to leave the 

 icebound northern shores for the more hospitable havens of the 

 south, whither we had hoped to convey, unbroken by disaster, 

 the untarnished record of a most successful exploration, intelli- 

 gence was brought to our quarters that a member of our party 



