FARTHEST NORTH WITH GREELY 



impossible, and finally, in self-defence, we were forced to 

 adopt a plan which contributed to our own comfort but 

 which had the effect of disturbing Frederik's rest. After 

 trying in vain to compose ourselves to sleep, one of us 

 would reach over and interrupt the objectionable snoring 

 by rousing Frederik from his slumbers and then ask him 

 in a tone affecting concern for his welfare whether he was 

 not cold and if it was possible for us to aid him in any way. 

 He always appeared touched and grateful at this solicitude 

 and never failed to reply that he was " all right." Before 

 he could resume his nocturnal music we would both be 

 sleeping soundly. 



Just north of Cape 

 Frederick, at the margin 

 of the embayed ice, we 

 came upon a tidal crack 

 about ioo yards in width, 

 which, judging from ap- 

 pearances, had been open 

 all winter, and which 

 obliged us to keep on the 

 fast ice between it and the 

 shore. 



The ice on the northern coast of Greenland did not 

 present the same characteristics as that met with farther 

 south. The large floes and floe-bergs of the so-called paleo- 

 crystic ice, frequently seen along the Grinnell Land coast 

 were rarely found north of Cape Britannia. It was evident 

 that the embayed ice in the deep fiords, especially in St. 

 George Fiord, was the birthplace of the domed paleocrystic 

 floes. It had all the external characteristic of the paleo- 

 crystic ice and was doubtless formed by the accretion of 

 snow which the summer's sun could not entirely melt. 

 These floes grow in thickness from year to year, and occa- 

 sionally a section is broken from the outer edge, drifts out 

 into the polar ocean, and becomes a floe-berg. This fast 

 ice extends from cape to cape, its outer limit being marked 

 by a fringe of rubble ice, piled high by the pressure of the 

 moving pack during the brief summer season. 



We camped at the end of this march just north of Elison 

 Island. The next night the traveling was heavy and our 



7.5 



