Survey of Northeast Greenland. 413 
FREUCHEN mentions the find of a single piece of driftwood in 
the interior of Independence Fjord in 1912, and further reports the 
appearance in this place of a great number of icebergs and sikosak 
floes frozen into the fjord ice. In this manner we get, as far as Inde- 
pendence Fjord is concerned, a similar impression of the ice conditions 
as we got in the case of Hagens Fjord. 
In the following I will attempt to set forth and explain the 
causes of the peculiar ice conditions in the fjords and bays of North- 
east Greenland, as well as to give a picture of the changes in the 
ice conditions according to the seasons. 
The thicknesses of ice measured by TROLLE towards the end of 
the winter of 1907—08 in Dove Bugt in the main fall between one 
and two metres"). The greatest thickness measured is of two and a 
half metres (Mörkefjord). In other places in Northeast Greenland 
one may, however, meet with solid ice which is very much thicker. 
The ship’s journal of the Belgica for 1905 — published in the oft- 
mentioned “Croisière océanographique etc. — contains the following 
remark on July 30th: “La lisière de la landice a de 2 à 3m de ht 
et présente des buttes”, and on August Ist (ф = 78°13’, I = 16°23’): 
“La lisière de la landice a de 1 à 1.5 m de haut; à l’intérieur: plaine 
unie”. To such heights in the edge of the solid ice must correspond 
very considerable thicknesses of ice. 
In his above-mentioned account in Medd. om Gronl. LI FREUCHEN 
mentions that in the interior of Independence Fjord he met with 
fjord ice which was at least 5 m thick. 
Besides the winter temperature and the prevailing currents the 
manner in which the snowfall is distributed over the fjord ice plays 
a very great part in the growth of the latter. The weight of the 
snow presses the ice down, so that the water comes over the top, 
where it soon freezes. In this manner the fjord ice can, where the 
conditions are favourable for the depositing of the snow, attain to a 
thickness far beyond that which it would otherwise have attained. 
Fjord ice formed in this manner constitutes the beginning of the 
sikosak (the sea glacier). 
The manner in which the snowfall is distributed also in another 
way plays а part, as far as the fjord ice is concerned. In the autumn 
and early part of the winter a proper layer of snow forms a strong 
protection against the cold, and prevents the growth of the ice; and 
in a similar way a thick layer of snow may, during the early part 
of the summer, serve to protect against the influence of the sun and 
prevent the thawing of the ice. The varying ways in which the 
) ALF TROLLE: Hydrographical Observations from the Danmark-Ekspedition. 
Medd. om Gronl. Bd. XLI, pp. 395—398. 
