DE LONG FJORD TO CAPE SALOR 



Americans twice had found conditions favourable. But this 

 plan, as we have already heard, proved impossible to carry out ; 

 an unusually persistent storm had contributed considerably to 

 the destruction of the first party's dogs. Thanks to our better 

 fortune, Koch and I were at last standing on the summit of the 

 mountain from which the work of the expedition could be com- 

 pleted. This fjord was the northernmost goal of our voyage. 

 Even here by Greenland's last, large fjord, one might expect 

 surprises and results to be added to those already experienced. 

 This was the reason why we, in spite of our comrades' uncanny 

 experiences, had staked everything on reaching this spot, and 

 as now we stood by our goal, with our return journey safe- 

 guarded by seal meat and blubber, we all felt that inexpressible 

 joy known only to him who has shouldered a task and carried 

 it through in face of all difficulties. 



We named the two new fjords, calling the one due south- 

 west Th. Thomsen Fjord, after the inspector of the National 

 Museum, who so often during our preparations had helped us 

 with good advice. The great main fjord itself kept, of course, 

 its name of de Long Fjord ; whilst the 30 kilometres long fjord 

 to the north-east of the middle arm was named after Professor 

 Bernhard Boggild, a member of the scientific committee of the 

 expedition. Not only the geological but also the cartographical 

 and ethnographical explorations found their natural conclusion 

 here. The stretch of coast from de Long Fjord to Cape 

 Bridgeman was in 1900 traversed by Peary, and no deviations 

 in the contours of the land in the form of islands or deep inden- 

 tations had been found. Thus no correcting work was left for 

 us ; no mistakes were possible. When Peary had come to 

 wrong conclusions with regard to places like Nordenskjold 

 Fjord and de Long Fjord, not to mention Independence Fjord, 

 these mistakes were, as I have already pointed out, easy to 

 explain. Due to the great stretches of entirely unsurveyed 

 country which Peary had to traverse, his task assumed a form 

 which merely demanded that the main contours of the land 

 should be put down and the details left, these details becoming 

 the work of the subsequent expeditions for which the first 



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