20 G- Holm. 



The amount of clouds is on an average 6'5 (according to a 

 scale 0—10). 



Fog was observed 40 days in the year, mostly in the summer 

 months. 



Thunder was during the whole period over which the observa- 

 tions extend onlj' observed once, in December 1903. 



The Northern Lights occur 61 nights a year. 



The great ice and the sea. — A factor which plays an im- 

 portant part in the life of the natives of Angmagsalik is the stale 

 of the "Storis"^) along the coast. 



As a rule, the coast as a whole is freed from drift ice in August 

 or September, sometimes even at the end of July. The coast then 

 remains free from ice until well into November. During these 

 months, however, scattered masses of ice and narrow ice-belts oc- 

 cur along the coast. 



When the new drift-ice comes in November, it may freeze to- 

 gether into congealed masses which are fixed immovably at the 

 coast; but, as a rule, the storms always break the ice again, and 

 then breakers are found along the coast. During the following 

 months the ice drifts away from or towards land according to as 

 different winds prevail, but the breakers cease, and the winter ice 

 settles on the fjords, and may for shorter or longer periods freeze 

 together with the drift-ice. As a rule, however, there is often a 

 strip of open water several nautical miles broad along the land. 



The ice does not usually lie close into land before April, and 

 the ice-belt then becomes so wide that as a rule one cannot see 

 open water from the mountains. In the course of June and July 

 the ice begins gradually to diminish in quantity and to open a little 

 more, so that the swell comes in to the coast. 



These general rules as to the state of the "Storis", however, do 

 not apply to all years. Thus sometimes the ice may pack by the 

 coast in the beginning of the winter, freeze fast there, and remain 

 lying there till towards spring; in other winters, again, the ice comes 

 close into the coast only for short periods. 



The „Storis'- forms no great impediment for the natives to 

 traflic, as il generally moves in a southerly direction at some di- 

 stance from land. Now and then, indeed, it may be pressed inlo 

 land, but it always goes out to sea again as soon as a calm or a 

 land-breeze sels in. When the Storis freezes fast off the coast, it 



^J 



') "Stoj'is'' (great ice) is tlie name f^eiieiali}' given lo the lieavy ice-masses which 

 come from the polar sea and drift down along the Kast coast of Greenland. 



