RETURN TO QUARTERS. 367 



land, on tlie contrary, this isotliermal line nowhere exists, 

 and the reachins; the level of the sea and the extent of 



o 



the ice is their only limit. 



Furthermore, in our Alps the slightest covering of 

 snow on the summit of the glaciers does not fall until the 

 the beginning of September. In Greenland, again, this 

 does not happen until a month and a half later. Some 

 nautical miles upwards from the mouth of the glacier 

 streams in the Fjord the ice was strikingly transparent, 

 light blue, and peculiarly smooth. This was evidently 

 fresh- water ice from the falling torrents, and turned by 

 degrees into the steel-green salt-water ice. 



We now found ourselves 3^° west of the ship ; 

 and, in spite of the great circuit we had made to 

 the south, we were again in its latitude, as shown by an 

 astronomical calculation of Copeland's. Our provisions 

 now consisted mainly of reindeer's flesh, which caused 

 a dysentery that not even opium could assuage. We 

 had, therefore, no choice but to return, which we did at 

 four p.m. We took our course from Cape Giesecke, 

 which we reached, after a thirteen nautical miles' tramp, 

 at seven p.m. (1° Fahr.) Here we enjoyed the sight of 

 a lovely meteor. For several seconds the whole of the 

 Fjord was bathed in one intense carmine light. On this 

 day the sun set for us, from our circumscribed horizon, 

 shortly before noon, so that it was perfectly dark, when 

 at 7^ p.m. we reached our resting-place of the 29th of 

 October (0° Fahr.). 



On the 3rd of November, at 7f a.m., we con- 

 tinued our journey in a southerly direction, from the 

 mouth of the Tiroler Fjord, over a monotonous desert 

 of fresh-fallen snow. The temperature had fallen to 



