Report on the expedition. 135 
in order to make an attempt to reach Cape Dalton. When the ship 
did not arrive, we made several attempts to go to our winter-quarter, 
but we failed owing to the impossibility of crossing the clayey and 
marshy land of which almost the whole of Shannon Island is composed. 
But the plan would have been frustrated, even if we had been able to 
reach our winter-house, as the ice was pressed close on shore during the 
whole of the summer and effectually prevented a boat from passing the 
coast between Cape Pansch and Cape Philip Broke. 
On Sept. 17th we had a violent gale with sleet, and its consequences 
must have been severe to all grass-eating animals on Shannon Island 
for the rest of the winter, as the whole land became covered with a crust 
of ice 2 à 4 cm thick. On a walk lasting several hours we hardly saw 
a bare spot of land, and on the march from the depot to our winter- 
house on Sept. 20th we passed one long stretch after another, covered 
with this kind of ice, so much in fact that we thought it quite feasible, 
though we were only two of us, to haul Amprup’s boat on a sledge over 
the plain, which was 4 miles broad. 
This ice-sheet on land disappeared, when on Sept. 21st we came 
nearer to the north end of Shannon Island, where no sleet had fallen 
at all. Judging by the large amount of snow found there it seemed 
that all the moisture, which on the south end of the island fell as rain, 
had here come down as snow. 
We remained in our winter-house from Sept. 21st to Oct. 17th, when 
we finally left the house. In the meantime we had made some small 
trips, advancing our stores etc., and had succesfully hunted musk-ox, 
of which we found many west of Frozen Bay. 
The early part of October was boisterous, raw and stormy, but the 
latter half of October and the first week of November were surprisingly 
calm, but very cold, the temperature being аз low as — 32°C. 
The purpose of the autumn sledging was to haul Amdrup’s boat, 
with full outfit, kerosene, clothing, some food ete. as far as Cape Philip 
Broke, so that everything could be ready to start southward in a boat, 
if the ship failed us again in 1912. 
it was of course no easy matter to transport the boat, but it was 
lashed firmly on a sledge, and two oars were raised to form a mast, on 
which another oar was hoisted as a yard. 
The tent-cloth did service as a sail, and with a northerly wind we 
could make rather good progress, but it was difficult to keep the sledge 
with the boat from turning over. 
We transported in all 1200 kilo and had of course to go backwards 
and. forwards several times in order to advance the whole load. The 
total absence of wind made it difficult for us to transport the boat, 
particularly over the rough, hummocky old ice in the middle of Frozen 
Bay, and at last on November 2nd we had to leave the boat about 2 
miles north of the bottom of Frozen Bay. 
