CHAPTER XVI 



BANGSTED^S WINTER EXPEDITION TO THE ICE-CAP 



HE object of this expedition was to 

 go in over the ice-cap by dog-sled 

 so as to get beyond any marginal 

 meteorological vaiiations, and 

 there remain as long as practicable making meteoro- 

 logical and other observations for comparison with 

 those made at Mount Evans and at a secondary 

 station in Holstensborg. The preceding winter 

 Bangsted had gone over the ice-cap from Umanak 

 on the west Greenland coast in latitude 71°!^. 

 There he had found the ice surface easy to traverse 

 with his dog-sled and had gone in about eighty 

 miles during a period of about six weeks. Nearly 

 half of this time had been spent on a rocky islet 

 surrounded by the ice, a nunatak. Though not 

 equipped with much meteorological apparatus, he 

 had none the less succeeded in making some very 



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