SCIENTIFIC RESULTS 



37 



Spitsbergen to Jan ^layen, in latitude 71° N., lonjxitiule 8° W. ; 

 thence soutlnvestward toward the coast of Icehuid, thence westward 

 across Denmark Strait toward Angniajijssalik, thence, narrowing, to 

 Cape Farewell Avhere the ice tends to congregate around Farewell. 



The first of the east Greenland pack appears at Scorsby Sound in 

 October, at Angmagssalik in Xoveniber, and off Cape Farewell in 

 December or January. But it seldom sets northward around the 

 cape to blockade Julianehaab Bay until the strong northerly winds 

 abate in A])ril.-- The wind is an imi)ortant factor in its distriljution. 

 Thus during northerly winds a strij) of o})en water will appear next 

 to the coast, while the outer edge of the })ack may lie 75 to 100 miles 

 offshore. Xormally, however, during the ice season the outer edge 

 of the pack around Cape Farewell lies about 00 miles out from the 

 coast. If the prevalent south wind is blowing, the " storis " -^ 

 reaches Ivigtut in March, Fiskernses in April, where in bad ice years 

 it may reach as far north as Godthaab. 360 miles north of Cape 

 Farewell, from ^Nlay to August. The pack, in a light ice year, how- 

 ever, will not reach further north than Ca})e Desolation, 140 miles 

 northwest of Cupe Farewell. The ice tongue which so often stretches 

 northwest from Cape Farewell tends to bend slightly away from the 

 coast if undisturbed by the wind, and sailing directions from Ivigtut 

 advise going north around it, unless the wind is on-shore, and coast- 

 ing back inside. The pack around Cape Farewell consists of glacons 

 of all sizes, and also of old hummocked floes as great as 100 feet in 

 width and 10 to 20 feet thick. In June and July when the " storis " 

 reaches its greatest abundance around Ca])e Farewell the edge of the 

 fields has been met 100 to 200 miles otfshoi'e. The best evidence of 

 the rate of |)rogress of the east Greenland i)ack i.s the drifts of ships 

 which have been caught within its clutches. Such an experience 

 befell several vessels of the Dutch whaling fleet in June. 1777, 

 which, according to Irminger (1856, p. 36), drifted southward from 

 76° north, parallel to the coast throngh Denmark Strait at the 

 average rate of 11 to 12 miles per day (see fig. 14, p. 27). The 

 Harisa, one of the vessels of the German north polar expedition 

 1869-70, was crushed October 23, 1860, in latitude 70° 50' X.. well 

 within the grip of the pack ofl' northeast Greenland. The sur- 

 vivors drifted on the ice and in a whaleboat all the way down 

 the coast, and around Cape Farewell, and finally landed the follow- 

 ing year at Frederickshaab, in southwest Greeidand. The average 

 rate of drift was 4 to 5 miles per day. A bottle thrown overboard 

 from a ship near Denmark Harbor, latitude 77° 12' N., longitude 

 16° 00' W., in northeast Greenland, was recovered a year later in the 



^Brooks and Quennell ( lOiiS, p. 9) show the monthly variation in the amount 

 ice drifting past Iceland during the period 1901 to 1924 : 



if pack 



These figures show that the ice season at Iceland normally extends from January to 

 July, with March. April, May. and .Tune heing the four heaviest ice months. 



-'Storis, literally "large ice," is the term used by the Danes to refer to the pack in 

 the east Greenland" current which is heavier than the floes that have formed locally. 



