28 BESET IN THE PACK. AMEEICAN ENTERPRISE.
W e are completely beset in the ice-pack, which has been streaming in uninterruptedly
from seawards ever since our arrival, and may be seen from the masthead
still pouring in at the entrance to Baal’s Eiver. In the harbour the masses
are crowded together in such close order as to render it impossible even for a
kayak to move amongst them ; whilst the constant rolling over of pieces here and
there, owing to the crushing pressure to which they are subject, effectually bai’s
any attempt at passing to and fro on foot.
The whole of the ice appears similar in character to that by which we have
been so hampered lower down the coast, and is of too great thickness to have
been formed in the fiords on this side of Greenland. The pieces vary from 3 feet
in superficial diameter to 40 or more. But in thickness above the water-hne there
seems to be much greater uniformity, the range being from 2 to 6 feet. Interspersed
amongst this pack-ice are a few small bergs, not rising above 10 or 12
feet from the surface, and in all probability fragments of larger masses.
Strange to say, although the temperature of the water at the surface is only a
few degrees above freezing-point, wherever a clear space of a few inches intervenes
between the pieces of ice, delicately tinted Medusæ and glistening
Beroidæ may be seen struggling upwards from the depths to bask in the
sunshine of which they are being so rudely deprived,—whilst numbers of mosquitos,
active enough to have emerged from a tropical forest, buzz through the
air and evince their sense of its warmth by bloodthirsty attacks on all new
comers. Nature for a time seems to search for contrasts. Above, an Italian
sky ; below, an Arctic sea ; as if Summer had stolen away from the soft South to
smile on Winter in his grim domain.
Aug. 10.—The partial clearing of the ice today has enabled me to reach the
‘ Nautilus ’ and make the acquaintance of Professor Chadbourne, from whom I
had received a very polite message. I learn from him that the expedition, of
which he is the director, is a private one, the entire expenses, even to the chartering
the schooner, being liquidated by the students or their friends—the object
in view being to teach them how to observe and collect specimens in the various
departments of Natural History. The ‘Nautilus’ left Thomaston on the 27th
of June, and, after dropping a small party, en route^ at Labrador, reached the
Greenland coast, off Julianshaab, the same day that the ‘ Cicerone ’ reached the
neighbourhood of Frederickshaab, and experienced the full force of the gale
DANISH SETTLEMENTS. SEVERITY OF SEASON. 2S)
alluded to by the master of the latter vessel. I t may be recollected that on the
east coast of Greenland, in almost the same latitude, the ‘ Bulldog ’ experienced
calm weather on the eclipse day, and that it was not until she had rounded Cape
Farewell and emerged from the shelter of the laud that the south-westerly
storms burst upon her.
Professor Chadbourne informs me that on the morning of the 18th of July
the ‘ Nautilus,’ in endeavouring to make the land off Frederickshaab, met with
an immense belt of pack-ice a hundred miles from shore, from which she had
barely time to escape when the gale suddenly increased to a perfect hurricane.
Eunning northward before it, in a couple of days the schooner was enabled to
round the advanced extremity of the pack, and to anchor in a little harbour in
the vicinity of Sukkertoppen, a small settlement about eighty miles due north of
Goodhaab. But for the absolute necessity of obtaining the supply of coal
directed to await us at Frederickshaab, the ‘Bulldog’ might therefore have
been comfortably ensconced at a like early date.
There are two small stations here, situated near the north-western angle of a
rather low peninsula, of nearly a mile in breadth, which abuts on Baal’s Eiver,
and separates our present harbour from it to the northward. At one of these,
namely Hernhutt, the Moravian Missionaries reside, whose predecessors, more
than a hundred years ago, established the first colony in the country. At the
other, Goodhaab itself, the superintendent of South Greenland (Dr. Eink) and
the principal merchants are located. On the eastern side the little peninsula is
united with the mainland by a series of hillocks, which gradually increase in
height as they approach and sweep round the inner margin of our anchorage ;
whilst along the shore-line it is protected, by a natural rampart of gneiss-rock,
from the waters of Baal’s Eiver and the adjacent fiord, which would otherwise
inundate it.
The Danish residents inform me that such a severe season has been unkuoivn
in Greenland for thirty years, and that the quantity of ice far surpasses that
usually met with. On the other hand, it is a remarkable circumstance that the
quantity of drift-wood brought round with the ice fram Cape Farewell is far
below that met with in average seasons. This can only be accounted for on the
supposition that the range of the Arctic current, as it sweeps across from Nova
Zembla and Spitzhergen towards East Greenland, has been so far extended to