Report on the Danmark expedition to the north-east coast. 193 



The first part of this task had now been accomphshed but the 

 second was still left. — The question was now: could we without 

 risk do more to obtain fuller information regarding our lost com- 

 rades or to save the results of their work. By far the most impor- 

 tant of these results, Hagen's exact and detailed charts and sket- 

 ches, were already in our hands and we hoped that Brønlund's diary 

 might contain some statement as to how the summer had been pass- 

 ed, but it was nevertheless a great disappointment, that neither 

 Mylius-Erichsen's nor Hagen's diary or journals were found with 

 Bronlund. For the pubhc and especially for the relatives of the 

 two men who had perished, it would furthermore be of great impor- 

 tance, if we could find the bodies of Mylius-Erichsen and Hagen. 



But this proved to be hopeless. I have already several times 

 mentioned the enormous quantities of snow that had accumulated 

 in the course of the winter. In my diary for March 12th I have written 

 at Cape Amélie: "On the distance covered (i. e. from the ship to Cape 

 Amélie) there has been almost twice as much snow as last year". The 

 Rosio Island was completely covered by snow and rose as a faint cu- 

 pola on the sea-ice, where the only dark point was the cairn on the 

 top of the island. The undulating high land on the western side 

 of Lamberts Land was completely levelled by the snow, even the 

 ca. 400 meters high slopes towards the south were clad in white and 

 it was only at a few places with overhanging rocks, that the ground 

 projected out of the snow. East of Lamberts Land, where in the 

 beginning of April in the previous year we drove on almost snow- 

 free ice during the last 2 to 3 kilometers south of the depot, there 

 was now a thick layer of snow. At some places in Jøkelbugt, where 

 in the previous year we had been stopped by huge fissures and large 

 screwings, we were this year able to proceed wthout difficulty across 

 a smooth, undulating snow-flat. 



And we have all seen indeed how drifting snow, at the places 

 where it lies at all and especially in large bays, collects round the 

 objects on the ground and gradually covers them. It may some- 

 times happen that a storm blows the snow away again, but unfor- 

 tunately during the previous month we had had a very considerable 

 fall of snow without storms and the surface of this snow had already 

 become so hard, that it could almost bear the sledges; it was not to 

 be expected, therefore, that a storm would uncover anything that 

 had been hidden. 



Even with a fairly certain statement of the exact place where 

 we were to look for the bodies of Mylius-Erichsen and Hagen, I 

 d(jubted if we coulrj find them, for the wavy surface of the snow made 

 it hardly possible to distinguish small objects at any greater distance 

 than a few kilometers and very often only within the distance of a 

 few hundred meters. But when it dawned upon me, that I could 

 xu. 13 



