PROF. NORDENSKT^LD, EXPEDITION TO GREENLAND. 391 



etc., was that year sent from Denmark, to Greenland, and took 

 with him, among other things, also horses, with which it was 

 intended to ride over the mountains, in order to rediscover, by an 

 overland course, the lost (East) Greenland. The horses, how- 

 ever, died, either during the voyage out or shortly after their 

 arrival in the country ; and thus this expedition, really magnificent, 

 but prepared in entire ignorance of the real nature of the country, 

 was abandoned. 



Dalager's attempt^ 1751. — This year the Danish merchant 

 Dalager made an attempt, in about 62° 31' latitude, to advance in 

 the beginning of September over the inland ice to the east coast. 

 In the first volume of Kranz's " History of Greenland "* there is a 

 short description of this journey, interesting, among other reasons, 

 as recording an instance of a glacier, which since Greenland has 

 been an inhabited land has forced its way forward and closed the 

 entrance of a previously open fjord. We find further from that 

 account, that Dalager, partly on foot and partly in a canoe, in 

 company with five natives, reached the border of the inland ice 

 near the bottom of a deep fjord situated north of Fredrikshaab. 

 For two days they continued their journey over the ice, but suc- 

 ceeded during this time in advancing only eight English miles 

 to some mountain summits rising above the ice-field, where a 

 reindeer hunt was undertaken. Dalager would willingly have 

 continued the journey a day or two longer, but was unable to do 

 so, partly because the two pairs of boots taken with them for each 

 person were so cut to pieces by the ice that they walked *'as good 

 '* as barefoot," partly because the cold at night was so severe that 

 their limbs became stifi" after a few hours of rest. On the other 

 hand, the route chosen by Dalager seems not to have been inter- 

 rupted by very many or deep chasms — in the beginning of the 

 journey the surface of the ice was even " as smooth as a street in 

 *' Copenhagen." Further on, however, it was extremely rough. 



E. Whymper's expedition, 1867. — All that I know about this 

 expedition is, that Mr. Whymper, in company with Dr. R. Brown, 

 three Danes, and a Greenlander, endeavoured to make their way 

 upon the inland ice with dogs immediately to the north of the 

 ice-:Qord at Jacobshavn, but that they turned back again on the 

 second day, after having proceeded only some few miles. The 

 reason of this was probably the unfitness of dogs for such a 

 purpose. 



It was originally my intention to renew these attempts, but on 

 conversing in Copenhagen with Messrs. Rink and Olrik, who had 

 formerly been Inspectors in North Greenland, as also with several 

 other persons who had visited Greenland, I found all so unanimous 

 in considering further advance over the inland ice as impossible, 

 that I determined not to risk the whole profit of the summer on an 



* I have not had access to Dalager's original account. " Gronlandskc 

 Rclationer, iudehaaldende Gronlandernes Liv og Levnet, deres Skicke og 

 Vedtagter, samt Temperament og Superstitioner, tillige nogle korrte Reflexioner 

 over Missionen, sammenskrevet ved Fredrickshaabs Colonia i Gronland," by 

 Lars Dalager, Merchant. 



