392 PROF. NORDENSKIOLD, EXPEDITION TO GREENLAND. 



unrlertaking of the kind beforehand disapproved of by everybody. 

 Nevertheless, I was unwilling entirely to abandon my plan, and 

 determined therefore to make a little attempt at a journey on the 

 inland ice only of a few days' extent. 



If the inland ice were not in motion, it is clear that its surface 

 would be as even and unbroken as that of a land field. But this, 

 as is known, is not the case. The inland ice is in constant motion, 

 advancing slowly, but with different velocity in different places, 

 towards the sea, into which it passes on the west coast of Green- 

 land by eight or ten large and a great many snail ice-streams. 

 This movement of the ice gives rise in its turn to huge chasms 

 and clefts, the almost bottomless depths of which stop the 

 traveller's way. It is natural that these clefts should occur chiefly 

 where the movement of the ice is most rapid, that is to say, in 

 the neighbourhood of the great ice-streams, and that, on the other 

 hand, at a greater distance from these the ground should be found 

 more free from cracks. On this account I determined to begin 

 our wanderings on the ice at a point as far distant as possible 

 from the real ice-flords. I should have preferred one of the deep 

 " Striimfjords " (stream-fjords) for this purpose, but as other 

 business intended to be carried out during the short summer did 

 not permit a journey by boat so far southward, I selected instead 

 for my object the northern arm of the above-mentioned Auleitsivik- 

 fjord, which is situated 60 miles south of the ice-fjord at Jakobs- 

 liavn, and 240 miles north of that of Godthaab. The inland ice, 

 it is true, even in Auleitsivikfjord reaches to the bottom of the 

 fjord, but it only forms there a perpendicular glacier, very similar 

 to the glaciers at King's Bay in Spitzbergen, but not any real 

 ice-stream. There was accordingly reason to expect that such 

 fissures and chasms as might here occur would be on a smaller 

 scale. 



On the 17th July^ in the afternoon, our tent was pitched on the 

 shore north of the steep precipitous edge of the inland ice at 

 Auleitsivikfjord. After having employed the 18th in preparations 

 and a few slight reconnoitrings, we entered on our journey 

 inwards on the 19th. We set out early in the morning, and first 

 10 wed to a little bay situated in the neighbourhood of the spot 

 occupied by our tent, into which several muddy rivers had their 

 embouchures. Here the land assumed a character varied by hill 

 and dale; and further inward it was bounded by an ice-wall some- 

 times perpendicular and sometimes rounded, covered with a thin 

 layer of earth and stones ; near the edge, only a couple of hundred 

 feet high, but then rising at first rapidly, afterwards more slowly, 

 to a height of several hundred feet. In most places this wall 

 could not possibly be scaled ; we however soon succeeded in 

 finding a place where it was cut through by a small cleft, 

 sufficiently deep to afford a possibility of climbing up with the 

 means at our disposal, a sledge, which at need might be used as 

 a ladder, and a line originally 100 fathoms long, but which, proving 

 too heavy a burden, had before our arrival at the first resting- 

 place been reduced one-half. All of us, with the exception of our 

 old and lame boatman, assisted in the by no means easy work of 



