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I.—Account of an Expedition to Greenland in the year 1870

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

A. E. Nordenskiöld
A. E. Nordenskiöld*
Affiliation:
Foreign Correspondent Geol. Soc. Load.
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Extract

The information gained by us during the first three Swedish expeditions to Spitzbergen having, either directly through our own experience, or indirectly through conversation with most of the intelligent and bold whalers and walrus-hunters of Northern Norway, fully confirmed the observations of Scoresby, Phipps, Tschitschagoff, Parry, Buchan, Franklin, Clavering and others, respecting the impossibility of penetrating by ship during the summer through the crowded ice-masses to the north of Spitzbergen, far beyond the 80th degree of latitude, an Arctic Expedition was sent out from Sweden in 1868, having for its object, among other things, to renew during the autumn months the attempt to sail towards the pole from the northern coast of Spitzbergen. I have, in a report of the expedition of 1868, given a brief accountable result of that undertaking, which showed that even at that period of the year, when the water is most free from drift-ice, the polar basin, at least to the north of Europe, and doubtless also to the north of America and Asia, is so full of drift-ice that all possibility of passing through it in a ship is out of the question.

Type
Original Articles
Information
Geological Magazine , Volume 9 , Issue 97 , July 1872 , pp. 289 - 306
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1872

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References

page 289 note 1 Proceedings of Royal Geogr. Soc, xiii., No. iii., p. 151 (1869).

page 290 note 1 This was written in December, 1870. The expedition of the last summer seems to me wholly to confirm the result of the older expeditions, but by no means to prove the existence of an open polar sea extending to the Pole.

page 291 note 1 In this account, in which I have principally confined myself to the last generally known Danish expeditions, because their especial object was to reach East Greenland, I have followed partly W. A. Graah, Undersögelses-Reise til Östkysten nf Grönland. Kjöbenhafn, 1832, and partly H. Rink, whose excellent work, richly stored with observations, “Grönland, geographisk och statistisk beskrevet,” 3 Delar. Kjöbenhafu, 1852–1857,1 have frequently made use of in this account.

page 294 note 1 An expedition seat from America or England over Smith's Sound ought undoubtedly to have at its disposal several ships provided with steam, one large vessel, which should never proceed to parts from which it cannot with safety return, and several smaller (60 to 100 tons), which at different times and by different routes should endeavour separately to advance through the ice, secure, in ease of wreck, of originthe possibility of returning to the depot-ship. Should any of these small vessels succeed in reaching an anchoring-place, e.g. in 81° lat., the success of the expedition would be much better secured than if the large vessel wintered in say 79° lat.; and if one of the small vessels should be lost, the loss is comparatively trifling. Such an event need not be accompanied by loss of life.

page 296 note 1 During the voyage over Dr. Nordström caught a cold, which fortunately was not of long duration, but hindered him from taking part, as had been intended, in the journey on the ice. His place was supplied by Berggren, who accordingly accompanied me to Auleitsivik.

page 298 note 1 A very interesting essay on this subject has been published by Dr. Brown: The Farmer, Jan. 1, 1868, p. 16.

page 301 note 1 Certainly receding, although the inland ice sometimes makes its way to the sea, and thus tracts that have been free from ice are again covered. We have an example of this in the ice-fjord of Jacobshavn, of which more hereafter.

page 301 note 2 I have, however, met with persons in Greenland who do not consider it as fully proved, that the inland-ice really does form an inner border to the whole of the external coast. Many Danes have resided several years in Greenland without ever having seen the inland-ice.

page 302 note 1 Dr. Hayes's remarkable journey, in October, 1860, over the fields of ice that cover the peninsula between Whale Sound and Kennedy Channel (78° N.L.), was performed, not upon the real inland-ice, but upon a smaller ice-field connected with the inlandice, like the ice-fields at Noursoak peninsula. The character of the ice here seems to have differed considerably from that of the real inland-ice. Hayes ascended the glacier at Port Foulke, on the 23rd of October, and advanced on foot, the first day 5, the second 30, the third 25 miles, in all 60 English miles. He was here forced to return, in consequence of a storm. The height of the spot where he turned back over the level of the sea was 5000 feet (The Open Polar Sea, by Dr. J. J. Hayes, pp. 130–136).

page 302 note 2 I have not had access to Dalager's original account. “Gronlandske Relationer, indehaaldende Grönländernes Liv og Levnet, deres Skicke og Vedtägter, samt Temperament og Superstitioner, tillige nogle korrte Reflexioner over Missionen, sammenskrevet ved Fredrickshaabs Colonia i Grönland, by Lars Dalager, Merchant.