22 DANIEL BRUUN. 
belt, all along the steep mountainous coast, behind which the inland 
ice can be seen, right down to Cape “Farewell”. 
Meanwhile warmth, wind and sea have greatly decreased the ice, 
although great ice-masses still float round Cape "Farewell”, blocking 
the coast, so that access to the southern part of the west-coast is 
exceedingly dangerous. The ice disperses, north of Nunarssuit and the 
promontories Cape Desolation and Cape Thorvaldsen, (on 61° 40' п. Lat.) 
likewise here caused by the issueing of the rivers and the curving of 
the country, and one can sail in to the land, as a rule, close to the north 
of the high montamous island. 
The waters washing Greenland’s coasts, are on the whole charac- 
terized by the masses of ice to be found there. They appear under two 
heads: Icebergs and floating saltwater ice. Icebergs originate, as one 
knows, from the mighty inland ice which practically covers the whole 
of Greenland’s interior. Big pieces of inland ice, break off and are dis- 
charged through the glacier, to float away either as an iceberg or small 
ice. Icebergs can attain quite a considerable height, sometimes 100 meters 
above the level of the sea, and as only !/, of the iceberg’s volume is visible 
above the surface of the water, they can reach the bottom of the sea 
even at very great depths. They often ground on the bars outside the 
fiords until they melt. The Danish North Greenland’s mighty glaciers 
are the origin of most of the icebergs on the westcoast, others come 
from Greenland’s east coast, driven by the north current over to the 
west coast together with the Polar-ice (Drift-ice) formed on the sea, 
from the artic ocean, north-east of Greenland. The waters on the south 
west coast are as a rule free from ice — from September to February; but 
when the ice masses in the arctic ocean begin to drift in the spring, one 
sees them coming round Cape Farewell up towards Julianehaabsbay, 
which is barred by masses of ice from April to August, during the best 
part of the summer time. The ice, sometimes, stretches in the evening as 
far as the eye can see, and in the morning it has completely disappeared. 
One can lie between compact masses of ice without being able to see 
the slightest opening, and a couple of hours later the whole has dispersed 
in every direction; as these tremendous floating ice masses are submitted 
to quick changes, navigation is difficult in these waters. 
The old Norsemen were splendid sailors, who were never afraid of 
sailing through the ice. Their small cleverly managed boats were of 
great use to them here. They were in several respects better adapted 
to sailing through the ice than the bigger sailing-boats of latter days. 
The Swedish Professor О. Petterson has tried to prove the likeli- 
hood of Greenland’s climate being different in olden days from a later 
period, and that Greenland’s coasts were fairly free of ice; this will 
explain certain conditions of the colonies (such as the inhabitation), 
but this supposition must still be regarded as a hypothesis. 
If we take for granted that the conditions of the ice — with a few 
