THE SUB-GLACIAL STREAM. 43 



All that we know is, that such a transcontinental passage, if ever 

 it existed, is now shut up. The glacier and the ice-stream have 

 not changed their course, though, if the shoaling of the inlet ' goes 

 on (and if the glacier continues at its head, nothing is more certain), 

 then it is just possible that the friction of the bottom of the inlet 

 may overcome the force of the glacier, and that the ice may seek 

 another course. As the neighbourhood is high and rocky, this is 

 hardly possible with the present contour of the land. At the present 

 day, the whole neighbourhood of the mouth of the glacier is full of 

 bergs ; and often we should be astonished on some quiet sunshiny day, 

 without a breath of wind in the bay, to see the " ice shooting out " 

 (as the local phrase is) from the ice-fjord, and to make up with the 

 little bay in front of our door in Jakobshavn Kirke covered with 

 huge icebergs, so that we had to put off our excursion to the other 

 side of the inlet ; and the natives would stand hungry on the shore, 

 as nobody would dare put off in his kayak to kill seals, afraid 

 of the falling of the bergs. In a few hours the bay would be 

 clear, until another crop sprang out from the fjord. At any 

 time it would be dangerous to venture near these bergs ; and 

 the poor Greenlander often loses his life in the attempt, as the 

 bergs, even when aground, have always a slight motion which 

 has the effect of stirring up the food on which the seals sub- 

 sist, Accordingly the neighbourhood of these bergs is favourable 

 for seals, in the attempt to capture which the hapless kayaker not 

 unfrequently loses his life by falling ice. When we would row 

 between two to avoid a few hundred yards' circuit, the rower would 

 pull with muffled oars and bated breath. Orders would be given in 

 whispers; and even were Sabine's gull or the great auk to swim 

 past, I scarcely think that even the chance of gaining such a prize 

 would tempt us to run the risk of firing, and thereby endangering 

 our lives by the reverberations bringing down pieces of crumbling 

 ice hanging overhead. A few strokes, and we are out of danger ; 



original paper of which this memoir is a partial reprint, as if this fjord Bpoketi oi 

 in the preceding extract was Jakobshavn fjord, and that Jakobshavn fjord was 

 open to boats in (iiesecke's day. The error was of no great importance, but I have 

 to thank Prof. Nordenakjold for calling my attention to it. There is a tradition 

 among the whalers that a whale was " struck" on the East Coast of Greenland, 

 near Scoresby Sound, and was killed a few hours afterwards near Omenak Fjord, 

 with the' same harpoon in it— a certain proof of a pas age across if the stati mint 

 is true. Perhaps, owing to the fewer icebergs on tin: East ( 'oast, Franz , Joseph's 



Fjord or Scoresby Sound may lie the open easterly termination of one oi these 

 fjords now closed by ice on the west Bide. Bee, on the question of the former or 



present c nection of tin- fjords on the- Bast ami West Coasts, Saabye's ' Green 



land'l English Trans.; 1818,) pp. 98-107. 



1 These inlets are, in fact, the "friths" of these ice-rivers. Indeed, the term 

 is actually used l>_\ some authors. 



