130 EJNAR MIKKELSEN. 
ice surrounding the land, and the only bird seen during this period was 
a raven, which we saw on March 16th. 
On March 17th we began a short sledge-trip (hand-sledge) down to 
the American depot on Cape Philip Broke. We arrived at the depot 
at noon (March 19th), having only used 15 sledging-hours to cover the 
distance of 23 miles. The depot-house was filled with snow, as a window- 
pane had become broken, and foxes had lived in the house during the 
winter. 
We had expected to see open water to the south of Shannon Island, 
as the temperature rose whenever the wind was southerly, but we were 
not prepared to see the practically open ocean, which came within 11% 
mile off Cape Philip Broke and extended so far to the south and ESE, 
as could be seen from an elevation of 100 metres. Only to the east 
the packice was seen and there rather close inland. 
We remained at Cape Philip Broke for several days, as we hoped 
to get such good weather that the ice between this cape and Bass Rock 
might freeze solid. But continual gales broke up the new ice, which 
drifted away out to sea, and it was evident that if we were particularly 
desirous to reach Bass Rock, we would have to make a large detour 
inside the open water and to walk over the old ice, which was covered 
with knee-deep snow. We had neither snow-shoes nor skies with us, so 
it would have been a hard task to drag the sledge through the soft snow, 
and as we were not particularly anxious to reach Bass Rock and did 
not want to waste our strength, having the large trip to Skærfjorden 
in view, we gave up the attempt until after our return from the north. 
On March 25th we had a temperature of — 2° C with a rather fresh 
SE wind, which later on changed to south and SSW without a fall of 
temperature. The temperature did not fall, till the wind came from the 
north, when it went down to — 26° C, but it rose again with a change 
of wind, and on April 5th it reached + 4° С, also with а SEwind. These 
large deviations of temperature must indicate that the open water ex- 
tends far to the SE and S. 
Our first game in 1911 was bagged on March 28th, when we shot 
three ptarmigans and one bear. We saw several hares, but they were 
very shy. 
We left Cape Philip Broke on April 7th and went back to our winter- 
house, where we arrived on April 9th. We began at once to make prepara- 
tions for our journey to Skerfjorden, and on April 13th everything was 
ready for departure, but storms and bad weather delayed our going 
until April 23rd. 
The pack-ice had broken away from the shore-ice during a violent 
gale (April 18th), and we passed large lanes, covered with quite thin 
ice just north of Shannon Island. The ice between this island and Kol- 
dewey Island had all been broken up within the last week, and the lanes 
and ponds became broader and larger, the nearer we got to Koldewey 
