136 THE GERMAN AECTIC EXPEDITION. 



in its greatest strength, reached as far as Cape Dan, where 

 the coast falls considerably backwards to the west ; and 

 on the east the boundary of Iceland recedes, thus causing 

 the ice stoppage to cease. Later we met, farther south- 

 ward from Cape Dan, a whole chain of icebergs drifting 

 in a southerly direction. These had evidently been 

 affected by the advance of successive masses of ice. 



On the 23rd, we could distinguish a hawk and a raven 

 which flew over us, greeting them as messengers of onr 

 return to life. A remarkable phenomenon appeared about 

 the end of January, in the snow- walls which rose around 

 our floe. During the calm, the floating ice had become 

 loosened, and the fissures and openings had been filled 

 up with snow as fine as sand, in gigantic masses 

 *' like sheaves;" and when, on the 25th, another close 

 pressure of the ice began, the masses of snow rose in 

 walls of from twenty to twenty-five feet high, changing 

 the whole face of our settlement into that of a ravine. 

 Of course, these snow enclosures were but of short 

 duration ; they broke up on the 1st of February, as 

 soon as the spring-tide set the ice once more in motion, 

 and soon melted quite away. On this occasion, a piece 

 of our floe, which had been divided by a great fissure, 

 broke off and drifted slowly away. We could then pretty 

 well estimate the strength of it, as the water was very 

 transparent, and the shining ice was perceptible at thirty 

 to thirty-five feet deep. So we might hope, unless 

 another crisis overtook us, that our floe's firmness might 

 last until it brought us into a latitude from which, by 

 the boat, we might be able to reach the nearest West 

 Greenland settlement. 



