44 EJNAR MIKKELSEN. 
At first we made rather good progress, for immediately after pas- 
sing the river-course, which we followed on March 31st, we got better 
and better ice, the further we got away from it. The large, snow-bare 
hummocks disappeared, and the surface became rather smooth, covered 
with long stretches of snow. 
At 12.45, just after having passed the stores we had advanced yester- 
day, we got on to some very bad ice, where we had to pass a number 
of rather high but short and steep ice-ridges, parallel with each other 
and extending E—W. During the summer the water flows between 
these ridges in a western direction and empties out into the large lake 
north of Cape Bellevue. 
The ice sloped rapidly towards land. The day’s distance was 10.5 
miles with a rise of 50 metres, our total elevation being thus 250 metres 
above sea-level. 
April Эта. The weather was very squallv, and it was not till 12.30 
that we could begin our day’s work, which consisted of bringing up our: 
stores and advancing them beyond our camp. The ice, however, was 
very bad, and one of our sledges broke down just north of our tents, 
so that we were compelled to return for repairs (Fig. 17). 
April 4th. We had hoped to be able to leave our depot for our 
return-journey on land, but we gave it up, as the ice seemed so very 
bad towards Dronning Louise’s Land. 
It was consequently left on the ice on 77°16’ М. Lat. on the top of 
a high hummock, plainly marked with the wreck of one of our sledges. 
The ice over which we travelled was almost bare of snow, and large 
hummocks, some as high as 4—5 metres, were lying side by side. This 
snow-bare ice was rather a surprise, but it is quite natural when we con- 
sider the extremely boisterous character of the weather in this locality. 
The wind, which is only an ordinary storm to the north of Dronning 
Louise’s Land, gains in velocity when forced into the funnel-like opening 
between this land and Germania Land and cuts away the snow 
(Fig. 18). 
The greatest undulations in the surface of the Inlandice are of 
course due to the large rivers, which intersect it all over, and to the 
rivulets running into them. But apart from this, there must be other 
causes, as we noticed a large amount of sand and stones on the 
surface of the ice, blown out from Dronning Louise’s Land. These dark 
objects absorb the heat, thus causing the ice to melt around and under- 
neath them, whereby holes are made, in which the melting is further 
accelerated by the water. We passed an exceedingly large number of 
holes and found sand or stones at their bottoms. 
Passing over these hummocks it will soon become evident that they 
are all longer in a N—S than an E—W direction, which is only natural, 
as the prevailing northerly winds deposit a hard snowdrift to the leeward 
of all hummocks or undulations (Fig. 19). These snowdrifts are late to- 
