NORDEXSKJ OLD'S AND BERGGREN'S JOURNEY IX 1870. 17 



along the sides of the excavation. The.se rivers presented in many 

 places not so dangerous, though quite as time-wasting, a hindrance 

 to our progress as the clefts— with this difference, however, that 

 they did not so often occur ; but the circuits to avoid them were so 

 much the longer. During the whole of our journey on the ice wo 

 constantly enjoyed fine weather ; frequently there was not a single 

 cloud visible in the whole sky. The warmth was to us, clad as we 

 were, sensible ; higher up, in the shade, as much as 7° or 8° Centi- 

 grade [19-4° or 17-6 ? Fahr.], but in the sun 25° to 30° Cent. [77 to 86" 

 Fahr.]. After sunset 1 the water-pools froze, and the night was very 

 cold ; we had no tent with us, and, although our party consisted of 

 four men, only two ordinary sleeping-sacks. These were open at both 

 ends, so that two persons could, though with great difficulty, with 

 their feet opposite to each other, squeeze themselves into one sack. 

 With rough ice for a substratum, the bed was thus so uncomfortable 

 that, after a few hours' sleep, one was awakened by a cramp in one's 

 closely-contracted limbs ; and, as there was only a thin tarpaulin 

 between the ice and the sleeping-sack, the bed was extremely cold 

 to the side resting on the ice, which the Greenlanders, who turned 

 back before us, described to Dr. Nordstrom [one of Professor Nor- 

 denskjold's party in Greenland] by shivering and shaking throughout 

 their whole bodies. Our nights' rests were, therefore, seldom long; but 

 our midday rest, during which, we could bask in a glorious warm 

 sun-bath, was taken on a proportionately more copious scale, whereby 

 I was enabled to take observations for both altitude and longitude. 

 On the surface of the inland ice we do not meet with any stones 

 at a distance of more than a cable's length from the border ; but we 

 find everywhere, instead, vertical cylindrical holes, of a foot or two 

 deep, and from a couple of lines to a couple of feet in section, so 

 close one to another that one might in vain seek between them 

 room for one's foot, much less for a sleeping-sack. We had always 

 a system of ice-pipes of this kind as a substratum when we rested 

 for the night ; and it often happened, in the morning, that the 

 warmth of our bodies had melted so much of the ice, that one's 

 sleeping sack touched the water wherewith the holes were always 

 nearly full. But, as a compensation, wherever we rested, we had 

 only to stretch out our hands to obtain the very finest water to 

 drink. The holes in the ice filled with water are in no way con- 

 nected with each other, and at the bottom of them we found every- 

 where, not only near the border, but in the most distant parts of 

 the inland ice visited by us, a layer, some few millimetres thick, 



1 The reader must, however, remember that at that season there was con- 

 tinuous daylight throughout the twenty-four hours. — (En.] 







