Survey of Northeast Greenland. 347 
be of no importance, if BERTELSEN and I did not suffer from constant 
constipation and were extremely exhausted. Yesterday we tried to 
get salt water as an aperient, but we failed, as the palæocrystic ice 
in this place is quite fresh. 
Started at 7.30 a. m. Our camping site was here a little to the 
north of the great valley south of Clarence Wyckoff. The coast here 
falls ESE; level banks in the sea near the coast. 
On the eastern part of Herlufsholms Næs the snow lies in great, 
smooth sheets, which on large stretches cover everything, and beyond 
which one sees quite an even snow-horizon. Not till quite near the 
coast does the rubbled gravel crop up again like small islands. The 
snow is loose, fresh-fallen snow; in a single place, however, in a 
crevice where the wind had made a large “whirling cauldron”!) we 
could clearly distinguish a stratification of the nature of névés. 
It seems as if a good deal of snow has fallen on the mountains 
in the course of the night; they are much whiter than yesterday. 
On the march to-day we soon left the sea ice and drove across 
the snow-covered Herlufsholms Næs, where before very long we came 
across quite fresh traces of a herd of musk oxen. The dogs got hold 
of the scent and set off at a gallop, without heeding the snow-bare 
spots, so that sparks flew from the sledge runners, and the sledge 
irons suffered a good deal. After a while we discovered a solitary 
bull at a distance of a few hundred metres from us. It was too 
tempting, for though we thought we had sufficient meat for the dogs 
in the meat depot, it was tainted, and so we could very well make 
use of this solitary gentleman. BERTELSEN and I were exhausted, 
and so did not wish to take part in the hunting. Consequently 
Togras went off alone and returned after an hour and a half with 
the bull on the sledge. He had shown the good sense to cut off its 
head, and the entrails had been removed. 
Our intention to go to the meat depot and from there to the 
sledge box depot was altered, as with the heavy sledding across land 
we could not carry all the meat; instead of that we decided to go 
direct to the sledge box depot, which lay at a distance of about 17 
to 18km. It was of great importance for us to reach the sledge 
box depot, where we could get pemmican and melt salt ice, so as 
1) Whirling cauldrons with stratification and snow partaking of the nature of 
névés was an infallible sign of the existence of an ice grotto of a similar kind 
to the Gnipa Cave. “Whirling cauldrons” of this kind we knew from the neigh- 
bourhood of Danmarks Havn, but we did not know at the time that they were 
a phenomenon indicating ice grottos. When first we found dents of this kind 
in the snow and the névés, we thought that they were due to standing vortices 
of air, caused by local topographic conditions; hence the designation “whirling 
cauldrons’. 
