176 
THE VOYAGE OP THE VEGA. 
[chap. 
Where the mountains begin, some few or only very incon¬ 
siderable collections of ice are to be seen, and the very moun¬ 
tain tops are in summer free of snow. Farther north glaciers 
commence, which increase towards the north in number and 
size, till they finally form a continuous inland-ice which, like 
those of Greenland and Spitzbergen, with its enormous ice-sheet, 
levels mountains and valleys, and converts the interior of the 
land into a wilderness of ice, and forms one of the fields for the 
formation of icebergs or glacier-iceblocks, which play so great 
a rdle in sketches of voyages in the Polar seas. I have not 
myself visited the inland-ice on the northern part of Novaya 
Zemlya, but doubtless the experience I have previously gained 
B AC 
SECTION OF INLAND-ICE. 
A. Open glacier-canal, b. Snow-filled canal, c. Canal concealed by a snow-vault. 
D. Glacier-clefts. 
during an excursion with Dr. Berggren on the inland-ice of 
Greenland in the month of July 1870, after all the snow on it 
had melted, and with Captain Palander on the inland-ice of 
North-East Land in the beginning of June 1873, before any 
melting of snow had commenced, is also applicable to the ice- 
wilderness of north Novaya Zemlya. 
As on Spitzbergen the ice-field here is doubtless interrupted 
by deep bottomless clefts, over which the snowstorms of winter 
throw fragile snow-bridges, which conceal the openings of the 
abysses so completely that one may stand close to their edge 
without having any suspicion that a step further is certain 
death to the man, who, without observing the usual precaution 
