THE GLACIERS OF GREENLAND. 99 



tude 64°. From this point they attempted to cross the inland 

 ice in a northwesterly direction toward Christian shaab. They 

 soon reached a height of 7,000 feet, and were compelled by 

 severe northerly storms to diverge from their course, taking 

 a direction more to the west. The greatest height attained 

 was 9,500 feet, and the party arrived on the western coast at 

 Ameralik Fiord, a little south of Gotthaab, about the same 

 latitude at which they entered. 



In 1S92, and again in 1895, Lieutenant Robert E. Peary 

 set out from Inglefield Gulf (latitude 77° 40'), and traveling 

 in a northeasterly direction for a distance of something over 

 live hundred miles, crossed the Greenland ice-sheet, and came 

 out near latitude 82° and longitude 40°. He succeeded in 

 capping a considerable portion of the northern coast, and 

 in demonstrating that Greenland is really an island, with 

 smaller islands to the north. Glaciers were found here flow- 

 ing to the north, while there was much vegetation supporting 

 herds of musk-ox and other forms of life. The interior ice 

 was found to be of a pretty uniform height, ranging from 

 5,000 to 9,000 feet above tide. Indeed, the conditions did 

 not materially differ from those found by JSTansen fifteen de- 

 grees farther south. 



In 1907 M. Erich sen, in charge or a Danish expedition, 

 pushed his vessel up the east coast of Greenland to 77° 

 north latitude, near Cape Bismarck, from which point he 

 explored the territory northward to Independence Bay, 

 thus completing the survey of the continent. But although he 

 lost his life in the effort, his notes were complete and showed 

 to the surprise of all that beyond the 78th parallel the coast 

 trended northeast instead of northwest, extending towards 

 Spitsbergen until the opening between the Arctic and Atlantic 

 Oceans is narrowed to 240 miles, only one-third the width 

 that had been formerly supposed to exist. 



In the summer of 1909, both Frederick A. Cook and Rob- 

 ert E. Peary laid claims to having reached the north pole, 

 both explorers claiming to have set out from the northern 

 part of Grant Land, Cook in 1908 and Peary in 1909. Both 



