Abstract
FROM a communication sent us by Dr. Nansen, we are able to give some details of the remarkable journey across Greenland which he accomplished last summer. We need only briefly recall the most important attempts which had previously been made to cross a country which is exactly in the condition of our own islands during the Glacial period. The first serious attempt was made in 1878 by Jensen and Steenstrup, who, from the west coast in lat. 62° 3°' N., managed to get some 40 miles into the interior, after many difficulties and dangers, ascending a mountain to a height of 5000 feet, from which they saw the inland ice rising gradually towards the interior. Then came the famous expedition of Baron Nordenskiöld in 1883. He, with a comparatively large party, started much further north than the previous expedition, a short distance south of Disco Island. The party succeeded in penetrating some 90 miles eastwards, to an altitude of 5000 feet. The Laplanders, however, who accompanied Nordenskiöld went in their snow-shoes 140 miles further, travelling over a continual snow desert to a height of 7000 feet. The next serious attempt was made by an American, Mr. R. E. Peary, in the summer of 1886. Mr. Peary started much further to the north than Nordenskiöld, and his course was due east. He reached 100 miles from the edge of the ice-blink, or inland ice, his highest elevation being 7525 feet.
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Dr. Nansen's Journey Across Greenland. Nature 40, 103–104 (1889). https://doi.org/10.1038/040103a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/040103a0