CHAPTER XXXVII 
GREENLAND AND ITS INLAND ICE— NORDENSKlOLD, 
NANSEN, PEARY 
The inland ice of Greenland was for centuries one of 
the greatest Arctic problems- — an entirely unknown area 
of 750,000 square miles. So little was its formation 
understood in the first half of the eighteenth century 
that Governor Claus Paars, Greenland's first and only 
governor, took out horses with the idea of riding across 
it to the supposed lost colony on the east side. He 
was disabused when he sailed up to the end of the 
Amaralikfjord, reached the inland ice and, after a march 
of two hours, was stopped by a crevasse. 
No one knew what there might be within that vast 
region. The Eskimos were often on its edge when hunting 
the reindeer, but had never ventured far. They were 
terrified at the mighty solitude. At last curiosity over- 
came fear in the case of a trader named Lars Dalager, 
who was at Frederikshaab, one of the most southern 
Greenland stations. With a few Eskimos, he went up 
to the head of a fjord to the south of the iisblink on 
September 2nd, 1751, and advanced for a few days over 
very rough ice. He noticed the extreme cold of the 
inland ice and sighted mountain peaks which he supposed 
to be on the eastern coast, but they have since been 
found to be nunataks or mountain peaks rising out of 
the great snowy expanse. He returned to his boat after 
five days. The men of science who visited Greenland 
somewhat later, Fabricius in the days of Krantz, and the 
German Geisecke in 1806-13, only reached the edge of 
the inland ice, though it engaged much of their attention. 
The well-known Alpine traveller Whymper made two 
attempts from Disco Bay in 1867 and 1872, but without 
result. Several persons, such as Steenstrup, Kornerup, 
and Holm, made observations on the rate of movement 
of the glaciers and it was found to vary in different 
localities. 
