Nov. I, 1883] 



NA TURE 



the feasibility of getting at least some 50 kilometres 

 inland from this spot decided me to select it as xa.^ point 



d'llppui. 



On July I the Sophia anchored in the bay just north of 

 the inland ice. We found here a splendid harbour with 

 clay bottom, some seven fathoms deep, surrounded by 

 gneiss rocks from 600 to 1000 feet in height, the sides of 

 which are in some places covered with low but close 

 shrubs, or clothed with some s|)ecies of willow, mosses, 

 and lichen, which, when we arrived, were ornamented 

 with a quantity of magnificent blossoms. From one of 

 the slopes a torrent descended, the temperature of which 

 was I2"'3 C. The weather was fine, the sky cloudless, 

 and the air very dry. July i to 3 were employed in 

 making preparations for the ice journey, while the natu- 

 ralists made excursions to various places in order to collect 

 objects relating to the conditions of the country. On the 

 night of the 3rd everything was ready for a start, and 

 after some difficulty in reaching the spot where the bag- 

 gage was we were fairly off. The spot fi'om which we set 

 out on the journey was only five kilometres from the 

 actual shore, and situated below a little lake into which a 

 number of glacier rivers fell. We proceeded up the river 

 in a Berton boat purchased in England. On the night of 

 the 4th we camped for the first time on the ice. The 

 expedition consisted of nine inen besides myself. After 

 a great deal of hard work in getting the sledges over the 

 ice, which was here very rough, we found on the morning 

 of the 5th that it was impossible to proceed eastwards, 

 but were compelled to return to the border of the ice and 

 then continue to the north or north-east until finding 

 smoother ice. 'This first part of the ice was furrowed by 

 deep crevasses and ravines, causing us much trouble. 

 We covered, however, a good distance that day, and 

 pitched our tent near a land ridge in the ice 240 m. above 

 the sea.' On July 6 I sent the Lapp Lars forward to 

 reconnoitre, and he reported that it was still impossible 

 to proceed eastwards, but if we marched for a day or so 

 to the north we would find the country accessible to the 

 east. As I feared, however, the impossibility of dragging 

 the sledges with the weight on them over the rough ice, I 

 selected provisions, &c., for forty-five days and left the rest 

 in a depot in the ice. We now resumed the march. It 

 was very interesting to witness the great ease with which 

 the Lapps proceeded among the ice ravines, how easily 

 they traced a road discovered, and with what precision 

 'hey selected the least difficult track. 



The Lapp Lars carried, instead of an alpenstock, a 

 wooden club, with which he had shin inore than 25 brown 

 bears, full of marks from th'eir teeth, and his eyes sparkled 

 at the thought of encountering a white one. On the 

 night of the 6th we held our third camp on the ice, and 

 now several officers and men from the Sopliia, who had 

 accompanied us thus far, left us. Besides the most 

 advantageous requisites for such a journey, we had with 

 us a cooking apparatus for petroleum, and here I beg to 

 say that I found this kind of oil far more suitable than 

 train or vegetable oils, which I had used on my former 

 expeditions, and I recommend the same most warmly 

 to Arctic explorers. Of scientific instruments I may 

 mention compasses, two chronometers, a circle by Pistor 

 and Martin, a small sextant, in case of the former being 

 damaged, a mercury horizon, three aneroid barometers, 

 thermometers, magnets, for the study of the clay deposit 

 in the snow, a topographical board, a photographic appar- 

 atus, blowpipes, flasks, nautical tables, &;c. The sledges 

 "kalkar," six in number, were of the same kind as those 

 on which Swedish peasant women bring their wares to 

 market ; the harness was made so strong that it would 

 hold a man in case of his falling into a crevasse. In 



' The altitudes were .ascertained by comp.iriiig three aneroid barometei^, 

 while observation was simultaneously made at Egedcsminde with a splendid 

 sea barometer I had left there for that purpose. As the figures have, how- 

 ever, not yet been verified, they may be slightly altered. '1 hey seem on the 

 whole too low. , ^ . 



addition to these things we had a manilla rope specially 

 spun for the expedition at the Alpine purveyor's in Paris. 

 The food supplied per day may perhaps interest ex- 

 plorers. It was — breakfast : coffee, bread, butter, and 

 cheese (no meat or bacon); dinner : 42 cubic cm. Swedish 

 corn brandy {briiiivin), bread, ham or corned beef, with 

 sardines ; supper : preserved meat, Swedish or Australian. 

 Sometimes preserved soup was served with dried vege- 

 tables. Five men were teetotalers, but there was no need 

 of supplying them with extra rations. For cooking, 07 

 litres of spirits were consumed per day. Our whole 

 baggage weighed a ton, a weight which might easily have 

 been drawn across a smooth snow or ice field, but which 

 was very difficult of transporting over the rough and cut- 

 up surface we had to traverse. Our daily march, 

 between July 7 and 9, was, therefore, not great, viz. 

 5 kilometres a day. In addition to the crevasses and 

 ravines, we encountered innumerable rivers, swift, and 

 with steep banks which were difficult of crossing, which 

 was generally accomplished by laying three alpenstocks 

 across them. If I had not selected these of the toughest 

 wood obtainable, we should often have had to make 

 detours of many kilometres. 



On these days we found on several occasions large 

 bones of reindeer on the snow, and it was but a natural 

 and pardonable conclusion to arrive at, that they were 

 those of animals who had fallen in their wandering over 

 the "Sahara of the Arctic regions." But that good signs 

 are not always true ones we soon discovered. 



During t'-.e entire journey we had great difficulty in 

 finding suitable camping places. Thus either the ice was 

 so rough that there was not a square large enough for our 

 tent, or else the surface was so covered with cavities, 

 which I will ftdly describe later on, that it was necessary 

 to pitch it over some hundred smaller, and a dozen larger, 

 round hollows, one to three feet deep, filled with water, or 

 else to raise it on a snow-drift so loose and impregnated 

 with water that one's feet became wet even in the tent. 

 An exception to this was the place where we camped on 

 July 9, viz. camping-place No. 6. We encountered here 

 a small ice-plain, surrounded by little rivers, and almost 

 free from cavities, some thirty metres square. All the 

 rivers flowed into a small lake near us, the water from 

 which rushed with a loud roar through a short but strong 

 current into an enormous abyss in the ice plateau. The 

 river rushed close to our tent, through a deep hollow, the 

 sides of which were formed of magnificent perpendicular 

 banks of ice. I had the spot photographed, but neither 

 picture nor description can give the faintest idea of the 

 impressive scene, viz. a perfectly hewn aqueduct, as if cut 

 by human hand in the finest marble, without flaw or 

 blemish. Even the Lapps and the sailors stood on the 

 bank lost in admiration. 



At first we had followed the plan of bringing the bag- 

 gage forward in two relays, but, finding this very 

 fatiguing, 1 decided to bring all with us at once. I found 

 this to answer better. On July 10 we covered thus nine 

 and a half, on the nth ten, and on the 12th eleven, kilo- 

 metres. The road was now much better than before, 

 although stiff enough. An exception to this was, however, 

 formed by the part we traversed on the nth, when we 

 proceeded alongside a big river, the southern bank of 

 w hich formed a comparatively smooth ice plain, or lather 

 ice road, with valleys, hills, cavities, or crevasses, some 

 five to ten kilometres in Avidth, anil five kilometres in 

 length. This plain was in several places beautifully 

 coloured with " red " snow, especially along the banks of 

 the river. It was the only spot on the whole inland ice 

 where we found "red" snow or ice in any quantity. 

 Even yellow-brown ice was seen in some places, but, on 

 the other hand, ice coloured grayish-brown or grayish- 

 green, partly by kryokonite, and partly by organisms, \yas 

 so common that they generally gave colour to the ice 

 landscape. 



