324 VOYAGE TO THE POLAR SEA. May 



but were finally brought to a standstill by soft snow-drifts 

 which stretched continuously across it. About four 

 miles beyond the extreme point they reached a wall 

 of snow or ice, rising perpendicularly to a height 

 of forty or fifty feet extended across the valley and 

 sloped upwards to the westwards, until at a distance of 

 thirty miles the tops of the mountains, at least two 

 thousand feet high, just appeared above the enormous 

 snow-slope. 



Though the travellers used every effort to reach 

 this barrier, they failed, owing to the softness of the 

 snow-drifts, and were unable to determine with cer- 

 tainty whether it concealed the edge of a glacier or 

 was a stupendous collection of soft snow. It seems, 

 however, impossible that such an enormous quantity 

 of snow, over a thousand feet in thickness, could accu- 

 mulate without turning into ice through pressure, so 

 that although we cannot definitely state that we met 

 with glaciers in Grinnell Land between the eighty- 

 second and eighty-third parallels of latitude, yet there 

 is good reason to believe that they do exist in the 

 interior of the country. Each of the large valleys on 

 the southern slopes of the United States Eange also, 

 apparently, contains a glacier ; and a snow-cap was 

 observed on the most northern land sighted on the 

 Greenland coast. Eecent traces of musk-oxen were 

 seen, but none of the animals met with. Four hares 

 and four ptarmigan were shot ; and a snowy-owl and 

 several snow-buntings seen. Frederick the Green- 

 lander returned from this journey attacked with scurvy, 

 though he had taken his lime-juice regularly both on 

 board ship and when travelling. 





