GLACIATIOX OF GREENLAND. 299 



explorer has since been able to effect.* The main fiict resulting from Dr. 

 Hayes's expedition was, that during the entire journe}' the surface rose 

 rapidly, so that at the end of it, and at an estimated distance of fifty miles 

 from the edge of the ice, an elevation of 5,000 feet had been attained, and 

 no signs of any change perceived. " We were seventy miles from the coast, 

 in the midst of a vast frozen Sahara, immeasurable to the human eye. There 

 was neither hill, mountain, nor gorge anywhere in view."t After reaching 

 a certain point, the elevation of which is not given, " an even plain of com- 

 pacted snow was reached, through which no true ice could be found after 

 digging dow^n to the depth of three feet." 



Professor Nordenskjold started, in July, 1870, from a point sixty miles 

 south of the ice-fiord at Jakobshavn, or 240 miles north of that of Godthaab, to 

 ascend on to the inland ice, which here comes down to the sea at the bottom 

 of the Auleitsivik Fiord. He reached a point 2,200 feet above the sea-level, 

 and about thirty-three miles from the extremity of the northern arm of the 

 fiord from which they started. The " uncommonly extensive view " which 

 the party enjoyed from a high point of ice ascended at the termination of 

 the route showed that the inland ice continued to rise town ids the interior, 

 so that the horizon towards the east, north, and south was terminated by an 

 ice border almost as even as the horizon line of the ocean. Nothing like a 

 moraine was seen, nor were there any scattered boulders on the surface of 

 the ice, except just at its edge. Neither was there anything more than the 

 most inconsiderable amount of detritus occupying the position of a frontal or 

 terminal moraine where the mass of ice terminated. Innumerable streams 

 of running water were met with, and their occurrence often necessitated long- 

 detours. The expedition occupied six da3S, the weather being in every 

 respect favorable. The only obstacle to farther progress seems to have been 

 the difficulty of carrying the necessary food for so long a journey, the two 

 Greenlanders who accompanied them having turned back at the end of the 

 third day. 



In MaA', 1871, Dr. Emil Bes.sels, who accompanied the American "Polaris" 

 expedition as scientific observer, made an exploration of the inland ice, start- 

 ing at the same point from which Dr. Hayes, ten years before, had attempted 



* The total distance travelled in two days and a small fraction of another was estimated by Dr. Hayes at fifty 

 miles. As no instrumental measurements appear to have been made, it is quite likely that this number is consid- 

 erably exaggerated, since it took Jensen's party five times as long to travel the same distance. 



+ The Open Polar Sea, Xew York, 18C7, p. 134. 



