NORDENSKJOLD'S AND BERGGREN'S JOURNEY IN" 1870. 15 



at Jakobzkavn, and 240 north of that of Godthaab. The inland ice, 

 it is true, even in Auleitsivik Fjord, reaches to the bottom of the. 

 fjord; but it only forms there a perpendicular glacier, very similar 

 to the glaciers at King's Bay, in Spitzbergen, but not any real ice- 

 stream. There was, accordingly, reason to expect that such fissures 

 and chasms as might here occur would be on a smaller scale. 



On the 17th of July, in the afternoon, our tent was pitched on 

 the shore north of the steep precipitous edge of the inland ice at 

 Auleitsivikfjord. After having employed the 18th in preparations 

 and a few slight reconnoitrings, we entered on our wanderings 

 inward on the 19th. "We set out early in the morning, and first 

 rowed to a little bay situated in the neighbourhood of the spot 

 occupied by our tent, into which several clayey rivers had their 

 embouchures. Here the land assumed a character varied by hill 

 and dale, and further inward was bounded by an ice-wall somewhat 

 perpendicular and sometimes rounded, covered with a thin layer 

 of earth and stones near the edge, only a couple of hundred feet high, 

 but then rising at first rapidly, afterwards more slowly, to a height 

 of several hundred feet. In most places this wall could not possibly 

 be scaled ; we, however, soon succeeded in finding a place where it 

 was cut through by a small cleft, sufficiently deep to afford a possi- 

 bility- of climbing up, with the means at our disposal — a sledge — 

 which at need might be used as a ladder, and a line, originally 

 100 fathoms long, but which, proving too heavy a burden, had, 

 before our arrival at the first resting-place, been reduced one-half. 

 All of us, with the exception of our old and lame boatman, assisted 

 in the by no means easy work of bringing over mountain, hill and 

 dale, the apparatus of the ice-expedition to this spot, and after our 

 dinner's rest, a little further up the ice-wall. Here [as usual] our 

 followers left us ; only Dr. Berggren, I, and two Greenlanders (Isak 

 and Sisarniak) were to proceed further. "We immediately com- 

 menced our march, but did not get very far that day. The inland 

 ice differs from ordinary glaciers by, among other things, the almost 

 total absence of moraine formations. The collection of earth, gravel, 

 and stone, with which the ice on the landward edge is covered, are, 

 in fact, so inconsiderable in comparison with the moraines of even 

 very small glaciers that they scarcely deserve mention, and no 

 longer newly-formed ridges of gravel, running parallel with the 

 edge of the glacier, are to be met with, at least in the tract visited 

 by us. The landward border of the inward ice is, however, dark- 

 ened, we can scarcely say covered, with earth, and sprinkled with small 

 sharp stones. Here the ice is tolerably smooth, though furrowed 

 b} 7 deep clefts at right angles to the border, such as that made use 



