Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 62.djvu/71

Rh additions to our knowledge of the Greenland ice-cap are very important, seeing how little is known of the interior of the country. Geological investigations carried out by Giesecke in 1806-14 along the west coast of Greenland for 60° N. to 73° N. form the basis of our knowledge of the geology of this vast island. The Danes have done much useful work along the southwest and southeast coasts, and the comparatively narrow strip of territory between the sea and the ice-cap is very well known from the 66th parallel on the east coast round to the 75th parallel on the west. Attempts to cross Greenland from west to east were early made. In 1728 Major Pars even set out at the head of an armed mounted force. But for long all attempts failed. Dalager, Rae, Brown and Whymper were unsuccessful in their efforts to explore the ice-cap. In 1870 Baron A. E. Nordenskiöld could only penetrate some 35 miles inland from the head of Auleitsivik Fiord, to an elevation of 2,200 feet. In 1878 Lieutenant Jensen reached a point 47 miles inland from Frederikshaab, where he found the ice 5,000 feet above sea level. In 1883 Nordenskiöld again visited Greenland, and made fifteen marches on the inland ice from the same point as before. He himself penetrated only a little way, but the Lapp ski-runners whom he had taken with him mounted the ice for 140 miles, reaching an elevation of 6,600 feet. At last Nansen effected the crossing from east to west. Umivik, the starting point, in 64°45′ N. latitude, was reached only after many hardships on August 10, 1888. By August 27 he and his companions, five in number, had ascended 7,000 feet, but only advanced forty miles. The ice-cap, however, was found to terminate in a broad flat plateau from 8,000 feet to 9,000 feet high, and over this such rapid progress was made that the west coast was reached, some fifty miles south of Goothaab, on September 29. Peary's crossings were effected in the reverse direction, and across the northern end of Greenland. After a preliminary journey from Disco Bay in 1886, Peary made his first attempt from McCormick Bay early in 1892, and, striking due northeast, came out on the north coast at Independence Bay. This journey was repeated in 1894, and briefly Peary may be said on these occasions to have determined the relief of an exceptionally large area of the inland ice, to have delineated the northern extension of the great interior ice-cap, to have demonstrated the insularity of Greenland, and to have proved the existence of detached land masses to the north. A valuable account was also obtained of the Smith Sound Eskimo.