was revisited by Peary, who supposed this bay to be a sound communicating with Victoria Inlet on the north-west coast. To the north Heilprin Land and Melville Land were seen stretching northwards, but the probability seemed to be that the coast soon trended north-west. In 1901 Peary rounded the north point, and penetrated as far north as 83° 50′ N. The scanty exploration of the great ice-cap, or inland ice, which may be asserted to cover the whole of the interior of Greenland, has been prosecuted chiefly from the west coast. In 1751 Lars Dalager, a Danish trader, took some steps in this direction from Frederikshaab. In 1870 Nordenskiöld and Berggren walked 35 m. inland from the head of Aulatsivik Fjord (near Disco Bay) to an elevation of 2200 ft. The Danish captain Jens Arnold Dietrich Jensen reached, in 1878, the Jensen Nunataks (5400 ft. above the sea), about 45 m. from the western margin, in 62° 50′ N.[1] Nordenskiöld penetrated in 1883 about 70 m. inland in 68° 20′ N., and two Lapps of his expedition went still farther on skis, to a point nearly under 45° W. at an elevation of 6600 ft. Peary and Maigaard reached in 1886 about 100 m. inland, a height of 7500 ft. in 69° 30′ N. Nansen with five companions in 1888 made the first complete crossing of the inland ice, working from the east coast to the west, about 64° 25′ N., and reached a height of 8922 ft. Peary and Astrup, as already indicated, crossed in 1892 the northern part of the inland ice between 78° and 82° N., reaching a height of about 8000 ft., and determined the northern termination of the ice-covering. Peary made very nearly the same journey again in 1895. Captain T. V. Garde explored in 1893 the interior of the inland ice between 61° and 62° N. near its southern termination, and he reached a height of 7080 ft. about 60 m. from the margin.[2]
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Coasts.—The coasts of Greenland are for the most part deeply indented with fjords, being intensely glaciated. The coast-line of Melville Bay (the northern part of the west coast) is to some degree an exception, though the fjords may here be somewhat filled with glaciers, and, for another example, it may be noted that Peary observed a marked contrast on the north coast. Eastward as far as Cape Morris Jesup there are precipitous headlands and islands, as elsewhere, with deep water close inshore. East of the same cape there is an abrupt change; the coast is unbroken, the mountains recede inland, and there is shoal-water for a considerable distance from the coast. Numerous islands lie off the coasts where they are indented; but these are in no case large, excepting those off the north coast, and that of Disco off the west, which is crossed by the parallel of 70° N. This island, which is separated by Waigat Strait from the Nugsuak peninsula, is lofty, and has an area of 3005 sq. m. Steenstrup in 1898 discovered in it the warmest spring known in Greenland, having a temperature of 66° F.
The unusual glaciation of the east coast is evidently owing to the north polar current carrying the ice masses from the north polar basin south-westward along the land, and giving it an entirely arctic climate down to Cape Farewell. In some parts the interior ice-covering extends down to the outer coast, while in other parts its margin is situated more inland, and the ice-bare coast-land is deeply intersected by fjords extending far into the interior, where they are blocked by enormous glaciers or “ice-currents” from the interior ice-covering which discharge masses of icebergs into them. The east coast of Greenland is in this respect highly interesting. All coasts in the world which are much intersected by deep fjords have, with very few exceptions, a western exposure, e.g. Norway, Scotland, British Columbia and Alaska, Patagonia and Chile, and even Spitsbergen and Novaya Zemlya, whose west coasts are far more indented than their east ones. Greenland forms the most prominent exception, its eastern coast being quite as much indented as its western. The reason is to be found in its geographical position, a cold ice-covered polar current running south along the land, while not far outside there is an open warmer sea, a circumstance which, while producing a cold climate, must also give rise to much precipitation, the land being thus exposed to the alternate erosion of a rough atmosphere and large glaciers. On the east coast of Baffin Land and Labrador there are similar conditions. The result is that the east coast of Greenland has the largest system of typical fjords known on the earth’s surface. Scoresby Fjord has a length of about 180 m. from the outer coast to the point where it is blocked by the glaciers, and with its numerous branches covers an enormous area. Franz Josef Fjord, with its branch King Oscar Fjord, communicating with Davy’s Sound, forms a system of fjords on a similar scale. These fjords are very deep; the greatest depth
