68 EJNAR MIKKELSEN. 
May 12th. We left the camp with all our outfit, and in a short 
time we reached the place where we hoped to descend to the land, after 
having travelled a distance of 6 miles with a decline of 550 metres (Fig. 34). 
It was very difficult to maneouvre the sledges on this perfectly smooth 
ice-slope, where not even the dogs could find a foothold, but we reached 
the river-course, through which we hoped to get down to the snow-bank, 
without any serious accident, though it took us 9 hours’ work to cover 
a distance of 1.5 miles with both our sledges. 
The snow-bank was very hard, and we were compelled to cut steps 
into it to get a secure footing, after which our sledges were slowly lowered 
down the slope, which had a length of about 300 metres, and so at last, 
on Мау 13th at 5.30 a. m. our sledges had once more come down from 
the Inlandice and were standing in a height of about 40 metres above 
the level of the sea. 
The face of the Inlandice when viewed from the land was perfectly 
steep and very much broken up (Fig. 35), while a very large amount 
of broken ice was lying at its foot. These pieces of ice were too angular 
to have been broken off before last summer, as the sun and water would 
then have rounded their edges, and they must consequently all have 
fallen down during the autumn and winter, thus showing that the glacier 
is in rather rapid motion. 
The Fyen’s Lake. 
Journey from May 14th to May 18th 1910. 
We had expected to find a very desolate country, when we came down 
from the Inlandice, but we were agreeably surprised to find a vegetation 
so luxuriant that we had seen nothing like it north of Danmark’s Havn. 
Large tracts were covered by a layer of moss, so thick that it felt 
quite elastic under our feet, and furthermore we noticed several kinds 
of grasses, some of which had a length of 30cm. and covered areas so 
large, that they gave the impression of fields. Not only the valleys 
but also the slopes of the hills were quite covered with vegetation, moss, 
grass, heather and willows, the trunks of which were as thick as a thumb 
and a decimeter high. 
A large number of animals found their means of existence on this 
luxuriant vegetation, and the first traces of animal life we found only 
25 metres from the foot of the snow-bank, over which we came down. 
These traces were of hares, the excrements of which were strewn 
all over the ground, and so many of these animals had passed round 
a very large boulder that a regular path had been worn in the grass 
and moss. 
We also saw very many excrements and footprints of musk-oxen 
and shortly afterwards the animals themselves. 
Of ptarmigan we saw hardly any traces, but we saw exceedingly 
many tracks of foxes and a few of wolves. 
