6 OCEAN AND LANDORFFS ATTEMPT IN 1728. 



of knowledge to those who have devoted attention to the subject, 

 for, to the ordinary geographer and naturalist, the fact does not 

 seem to be generally known. It will, therefore, be useful to give 

 a summary of the different attempts — futile though most of them 

 have been — to penetrate the interior of the frozen land, and to 

 shortly sum up what the present state of our knowledge would lead 

 us to deduce regarding the structure and configuration of this inte- 

 resting Arctic Continent. 



1. Ocean and Landorff's Attempt in 1728. — As far as I can learn, 

 this is the first attempt made to penetrate the interior of Greenland, 

 and from the ignorance it displayed of the nature and character of 

 the country to be passed over, we may well suppose that it was 

 planned in a time of supreme unacquaintance with the existence of 

 the inland ice. Major Ocean 1 and Capt. Landorff were respectively 

 the governor and commandant designate of a fort which the Danish 

 Government proposed to establish on the east coast of Greenland. 

 They took with them an armed company, artillery and horses, from 

 Denmark. The horses died on the passage out ; and so a grandly 

 planned expedition failed, owing to its having been projected in 

 utter ignorance of the nature of the country. Finding that it was 

 all but impossible, on account of the great ice-stream which is ever 

 pouring down that coast, to reach the seat of Government, these 

 gallant officers proposed what appears to us now almost too ludi- 

 crous and madcap a scheme to be seriously related : viz., to ride on 

 horseback across the country from the west to the east coast. We 

 must, however, remember that a century and a half ago little or 

 nothing was known about Greenland except by vague tradition or 

 the tales of the Eskimo, repeated by Hans Egede, who had just 

 established his trading mission eight years, and was but imperfectly 

 acquainted with the language of the Eskimo, and more than sus- 

 picious of their veracity. It is also as well to bear in mind that 

 some of the South Greenland fjords support a few cattle and sheep, 

 and, therefore, in some respects, justify the name which Erikr 

 Eauthri applied to the country when he first discovered it. They 

 seem to have attempted it on foot, some will even say on horse- 

 back ; but history has preserved us but scanty details of this 

 extraordinary attempt, for all that I can find regarding it is a 

 doleful lament that the route taken was covered with glaciers and 

 chasms. Egede seemed to have been well acquainted with the 

 nature of the inland ice, for, in all the attempts either made by him 



1 According to my notes of the expedition. Nordenskjold, however, in hie 

 ' Redogorelse for en Expedition till Gronland, ar 1870,' gives the name as 



