NORTH POLE OF THE WINDS 



be postponed because of a violent foehn wind, 

 which, as is usually the case, sucked up whatever 

 snow there had been on the ground. The violent 

 wind blew down upon us off the ice-cap, so that 

 the temperature rose to 42° Fahrenheit, and with- 

 in two hours all the snow had disappeared. The 

 ice on the fjord was quickly covered with thaw- 

 water. Under these conditions it would be im- 

 possible to set out, so we tried to be patient and 

 waited in the hope that cold would soon again 

 freeze a hard cover over the fjord. 



On the 14fth of January with Marius I made 

 a reconnoitering trip across the fjord and along 

 the Nakajanga to the sand flat, as a result of 

 which I decided to break camp at daybreak the 

 next morning. The day had scarcely ended before 

 there had come another foehn. The rise in tem- 

 perature was so sudden as to make us fairly pant 

 and gasp for breath in the heat. The air was 

 still, but from the southeast over the ice-cap came 

 the dark lenticular foehn clouds which heralded 

 the coming of such weather. We were in for 

 another of these Greenland storms which especially 

 characterized the winter of 1927-28. There had 

 been two or three and sometimes four foehns each 

 month, and each of them lasted from two and one- 

 half to three days. 



192 



