344 P- Freuchen. 



which lay at the foot of the chiTs on the southern side. There were 

 no fissures to be seen in the glacier itself; there were, however, two 

 systems of the well-known blue line formations formed by the filling 

 of those narrow fissures which are made by the warmth of the sun 

 in spring, with water from the summer thaws. These were visible 

 everywhere, one system running throughout parallel with the direction 

 of movement, i. e. along the ravine, and following the various curvings 

 of the same, the other forming an angle of 60° with the first. These 

 blue lines continued almost up to the summit of the glacier, where 

 the snow covers the ice. 



In front of the cliffs to the south, we found regularly for the first 

 part of the way great stones lying on the ice; they had not fallen 

 down from the cliffs, however, as they did not belong to the rock 

 formations in question. The stones became more and more numerous 

 as we went on, leading finally, at a point some 7 km. from the 

 glacier front, to three parallel rows of gneiss blocks, some 5 — 6 ft. 

 high, rounded and much worn. The rows were some 200 metres apart, 

 the distance between the blocks themselves being from 1 — 20 metres. 

 These ranks of stone continued for a distance of 1.5 km. and then 

 ceased. The glacier slopes more sharply here for some little distance, 

 after which the moraine disappears. Where the breadth of the ravine 

 varies, the alteration is compensated in the glacier, not by fissures, 

 as is often the case, but by a change in the angle of the slope, which 

 increases or decreases as the channel narrows in or widens out. The 

 whole length of the glacier therefore moves in an undulating hne 

 down towards the sea, the separate waves being from 300 to 1000 

 metres wide and 50 to 75 metres high. After a good 12 km. run, a 

 final and somewhat steeper ascent brings one to the inner end of the 

 ravine, where the glacier joins the inland ice itself. The cliffs (altitude 

 485 barom.) here disappear under the ice. 



The summits of these cliffs, by the way, are submerged for al- 

 most the whole of the way out to the sea by the inland ice, so that 

 their inner sides, facing the glacier, present the appearance of perpen- 

 dicular walls of rock capped with some 20 metres of ice. This icing, 

 moreover, calves from time to time, throwing off blocks which lie piled 

 in great heaps along the foot of the cliffs. 



(It should here be mentioned that the maps of the locality are, 

 as is the case with most maps of Greenland, far from complete as 

 regards the boundaries between the land and the inland ice). 



When the inland ice is reached, there are two or three narrow 

 fissures (abt. ^'n m.) across the line of the ravine; save for these, how- 

 ever, the surface is level and unbroken. The covering layer of snow 

 is quite thin, and in many places, where irregularities in the surface 

 appear, the ice breaks through in smooth polished hummocks. The 



