WORK OF ARCTIC EXPLORERS. 193 



through gaps of the mountains to the heads of the many fjords and bays, 

 where the outflowing ice is broken into bergs of every irregular shape 

 and borne away by the sea. One of. these ice-streams, discovered and 

 named by Kane the Humboldt glacier, is 60 miles wide where it enters 

 Peabody bay, above which it rises in cliffs 300 feet high. 



The altitude and slopes of the Greenland ice-sheet have been deter- 

 mined by Nordenskiold, Peary, and Nansen. Nordenskiold's journey in 

 July, 1870, to the east from the head of Aulatsivik fjord, near latitude 

 68° 20', is estimated to have extended about 35 miles upon the ice-sheet, 

 and the altitude reached was 2,200 feet. From nearly the same starting 

 point, Nordenskiold, in July, 1883, went onto the ice-sheet about 73 

 miles, to a height of about 4,950 feet ; and two Lapps, traveling with the 

 peculiar snowshoes called " ski," advanced a probable distance of 45 or 

 50 miles farther, where the barometers indicated a height of 6,386 feet. 

 Land in the interior, free of ice and bearing vegetation, which Norden- 

 skiold hoped to reach, was not found ; and no nunatak, or projecting top 

 of hill or mountain, above the ice surface has been yet discovered more 

 than 40 or 50 miles inside the ice-covered area. 



Lieutenant R. E. Peary, of the United States Navy, in June and July, 

 1886, accompanied by Christian Maigaard, made the next important ex- 

 ploration of the inland ice, going eastward from the head of Pakitsok 

 fjord, on the northeastern part of Disco bay, in latitude 69° 30'. They 

 advanced to a distance of about 100 miles from the edge of the ice, at- 

 taining an altitude of about 7,500 feet. In concluding the narrative of 

 this journey* after describing the needful outfit, Peary remarked: "To 

 a small party thus equipped, and possessed of the right mettle, the deep, 

 dry, unchanging snow of the interior ... is an imperial highway, 

 over which a direct course can be taken to the east coast." It was also 

 suggested that the unexplored northern shore lines of Greenland may be 

 most readily mapped by expeditions across the high inland ice. This 

 sagacious suggestion Peary has since in part fulfilled by his very success- 

 ful expedition from May 15 to August 6 of this year, in which he crossed 

 the northwestern and northern parts of this ice-sheet, reaching altitudes 

 of 5,000 to 8,000 feet, and determining approximately the northern bound- 

 ary of the ice from Petermann fjord to the eastern coast at Independence 

 bay, in latitude 81° 37' and longitude 34° west from Greenwich. 



In August and September, 1888, Dr Fridtjof Nansen, with five com- 

 panions, crossed the ice-sheet of Greenland from east to west between 

 latitude 64° 10' and 64° 45'. The width of the ice there is about 275 

 miles, extending into the ocean on the east, but terminating on the west 



*"A Reconnoissance of the Gfreenland Inland [ee," Bull. Am. Geog. Soc, vol. xix, pp. 201-2-'^ 

 September 30, 1887. 



