SHERARD OSBORNE FJORD 



many great water-basins have poured out their contents 

 through the melting-pores of the ice, and in most places they 

 are now quite empty. The porous ice with its sharp needles is 

 painful for the feet, bidfthe dogs constantly wear their shoes, 

 which prevent their paws from being cut. In some places we 

 meet lakes which are from 2 to 3 kilometres broad. As a rule 

 the water here only reaches up to the ankle, but it is very cold 

 and covered with a layer of thin ice which breaks with a jingle 

 as soon as we tread on it. This sharp new ice troubles the dogs 

 when it breaks between their paws, for the fragments have edges 

 like knives, having the hard consistency of fresh water in con- 

 tradistinction to the softer toughness of the salt water. To get 

 around the worst and biggest of these lakes we drive in a zigzag 

 course, and only at two o'clock do we reach Dragon Point after 

 having made a distance of 13 kilometres. 



To our surprise we meet here a belt of open water between 

 land and the oeean-ice. The excessive quantity of melted water 

 of the last few days has oozed down from land and softened the 

 ice ; the pressure of the tidal waters underneath has added its 

 work to hasten the melting, and these forces together have pro- 

 duced a broad belt of open water between land and the ocean- 

 ice. We find a spot with a breadth of only 40 kilometres 

 and ferry across with the sledges which, with the aid of bladders, 

 we have made capable of floating. 



To our indescribable disappointment, we have not yet seen 

 one single seal ; the reason must surely be that the ice, because 

 of the hasty melting of the snow, has become so rough and 

 prickly that the seals do not care to crawl up on it. Neverthe- 

 less, we are hoping that a systematic hunt may give some result, 

 as in the water-belt between land and ice we have seen several. 



After a hurried meal Harrigan and I climb the mountains 

 in order to find, from the top of the high Dragon Mountain, a 

 point of access to the inland-ice. Going is bad and we fre- 

 quently cut our feet, which are already sore from walking across 

 the ice, on the many little sharp stones which cover the mountain 

 slopes. These stones alternate with heavy, soft clay, now in 

 such a state because of the thaw that we frequently sink down 



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