128 EJNAR MIKKELSEN. 
Here we remained all of Sept. 15th, as we had been surrounded by 
open water, while the ice was not solid enough to walk on till Sept. 
16th. We were now so weakened from the permanent exposure and 
lack of food and even water that we could not carry anything besides 
our gun and glasses, and so everything else was left in a depot on the rock. 
We started at ба. m., and it took us seven hours to walk over the 
thin and unsafe ice to Rekvedoen, where we ate our last few grams 
of pemmican. The ice along the coast from there and to Cape Marie 
Valdemar was safe, and we reached the site of the depot at 9 р. m. but 
found no food. Rested until it became light enough to walk (Sept. 
17th). We had to walk along the beach from here to Danmark’s Havn, 
as there was no ice at all along the coast save in the most sheltered bights. 
We reached Syttenkilometernesset on Sept. 17th, and we luckily found 
two small tins of provisions left by the Danmark-Expedition. This 
small amount of food helped us a great deal, and we arrived at the house 
in Danmark’s Havn on Sept. 18th at 11 a.m. 
At first we were too exhausted to do any hunting, and we also lacked 
energy to undertake even the slightest amount of work. We had, how- 
ever, to make a new camping outfit, sledge etc. of materials which we 
found in the house, and we were not ready to go north to fetch our journals 
till Oct. 2nd, after which period stormy weather, which continually broke 
the ice, kept us in the house until Oct. 15th. Being as yet rather weak 
we could not make any progress over the salty ice, which was covered 
with snow, and after seven days’ travelling we had not even reached 
Fyrretyvekilometernesset. 
We realized that it would be impossible to reach our depot in this 
way, and as we had no prospect at all of better conditions, we gave 
up the attempt and reached Danmark’s Havn on Oct. 23rd. 
It was not till Nov. 5th that we were again able to continue our 
sledging, now laying our course to Shannon Island. Stormy weather, 
darkness and a surprisingly wet surface delayed us so much that we 
did not reach our depot on Cape Peschel till Nov. 10th. We found the 
food in good shape, but the clothing-bag was torn to pieces, and 
only small rags of the contents were found. 
The same salty surface which we encountered across Dove Bay was 
also found along the coast of the main land, and in some places we found 
more than 1 cm salt and snow mixed together. This surprised us, as 
the ice must have been so thick at this time of the year that no salty 
moisture could remain on the surface, but we were still more surprised 
to notice that the snow-layer seemed to have been drenched by salt 
water. This could only have happened in one way, i. e. the ice having 
broken under the strain of a violent storm on Oct. 31st and Nov. Ist, 
after which it became possible for the waves or spray to drench the 
snow. This assumption was strengthened by the fact that we found 
many places along the coast, where the ice was quite thin. 
