Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/338

324 beyond the influence of the Gulf Stream, proceeds from the enormous quantity of ice carried by the polar current in this direction. The principal chance of success depends upon the direction of the prevailing winds. East and southeast winds render the icebergs more resistant and more compact; west and northwest winds, on the contrary, by driving back the blocks of ice in an opposite direction, cause a division and a crumbling that disentangle the labyrinths near the shore, and open numerous passes.

The Germania had this experience. During the month of July she struggled in vain against insuperable agglomerations of icebergs and ice-fields welded to each other. It was not till the commencement of August, when the predominance of breezes from the Atlantic had produced a loosening of the ice driven back between Iceland and Spitzbergen, that the ship opened a passage, and effected a landing in a small bay of Sabine Island, in the Pendulum Archipelago, below that part of the country called King William's Land.

It is well known that Greenland, visited several times from the tenth to the fifteenth century, then completely abandoned and lost, was rediscovered at the end of the sixteenth century by some Scandinavian sailors. The eastern shore, particularly, is only known since the voyages accomplished from 1822 to 1831, by Scoresby, Clavering, Sabine, and Graah; we do not speak of the unfortunate attempt made at the same epoch by the Frenchman, Jules de Blossville, who disappeared with his ship, and was never heard of afterward.

This eastern coast, relatively level from Cape Farewell, the extreme southern point, as far as Scoresby's Sound, suddenly changes its character as soon as the seventieth degree is passed. It offers at this latitude an infinity of bold promontories, deep and sinuous fiords, fantastically collected, with backgrounds bristling with gigantic glaciers, in comparison with which the most famous ones of Switzerland singularly lose their majesty. All this jagged, solid mass, has for an advance-guard a projection of islands generally very mountainous; the whole figure recalls a little the aspect of the coasts of ancient Asia Minor. The Germania penetrated into the centre of this labyrinth. As soon as she was anchored in her harbor, it was evident that she must remain a prisoner. The masses of iceberg, though temporarily affected by the summer heat, manifested no symptom of breaking up, and the channels, opened between the islands and the continent, began to close during the middle of August. According to the account of explorers, the formation of ice takes place in this manner. Small, isolated denticulations are accidentally formed near each other, without presenting at first any appearance of cohesion. Afterward, a thick paste is produced, which is finally amalgamated into a crust, and this crust is so flexible that it reproduces without breaking the swelling of the surge. By the middle of September this ice could sustain the weight of the sleds. Mr. Koldewey and his companions improved the