SPRING JOURNEYS, 1901. 153 



Beautiful weather, still and clear, was the order of the follow- 

 ing day. Even the snow had undergone a remarkable change 

 before loose and heavy, but now so hard and good that we made 

 Baumann Fjord by nightfall, and camped a little way up it, 

 reaching Depot Point the day afterwards, where we found every- 

 thing in good order. "We dug up the frozen meat, and let the dogs 

 eat their fill for supper. 



Next morning a keen wind was blowing, despite which it was 

 misty until the afternoon; We dug assiduously to get out the rest 

 of the depot, provisioned ourselves for the journey north, and made 

 everything ready for our departure on the morrow. None of us 

 found this delving work very agreeable, to say nothing of taking 

 observations and the like with the temperature at - 56 Fahr. 

 (-49 Cent.). 



I went up on to the western part of the mountains, shot a 

 brace of hares, and had a splendid view to the north, over fjords, 

 mountains, and plains. I received the impression that a passage 

 must be practicable from the inner part of Baumann Fjord to the 

 waterway we had seen in the spring of 1899. 



It was decided that Baumann and Peder should come north- 

 ward with us for a couple of days longer, and then return home to 

 begin on the mapping later on. 



The dogs pulled hard when we started next morning, and we 

 drove up the fjord with the snow swirling up round as. We 

 hopped and pounded from drift to drift, and it was as much as 

 we could do to hold the heavy sledges on an even keel. It was 

 not until the afternoon, when we were well up the inmost fjord- 

 arm, that the going became slow again. 



About midday we reached the entrance to the innermost 

 fjord, which, long and slender, penetrated the land in a northerly 

 direction. On the east side the country was very flat, with low 

 rounded ridges, and towards the north-east the lowlands stretched 

 so far inwards that I found it barely possible to distinguish the 

 mountains in the distance. But farther north they increased in 

 height, and in the inner parts of the fjord lofty mountains fell 

 sheer into the sea. 



On the west side too the mountain-walls were of considerable 



