By the 2nd of September they had all taken to their skis on which they made great progress alone, but when it came to hauling the sledges there was a difference. Sometimes the snow proved to be very heavy going, particularly when it was wind-packed, and then it was no better than sand. One entry in Nansen's journal will suffice: "It began to snow in the middle of the day, and our work was heavier than ever. It was worse even than yesterday, and to say it was like hauling in blue clay will scarcely give an idea of it. At every step we had to use all our force to get the heavy sledges along, and in the evening Sverdrup and I, who had to go first and plough a way for ourselves, were pretty well done up."
ON LEVEL GROUND
When at last the wind became favourable they hoisted sail, and off they went over the waves and drifts of snow at a speed that almost took their breath away; and when they reached the western slopes they slid down them using the sledges as toboggans. At first they had intended making for Christianshaab, but the route had to be changed for that to Godthaab, and the sea was reached some distance to the south. Here they stitched the floor-sheet of their tent over a framework of withies, and with oars made of canvas stretched across forked willows and tied to bamboo shafts, Nansen and Sverdrup boldly trusted themselves to the waves and with much hard labour pulled into Ny Herrnhut on the 3rd of October. Such was the first crossing of Greenland, a really remarkable instance of daring endeavour.
Further north, Nordenskiöld, in 1883, had attempted to cross over the ice-cap from near Disco on the west coast, but, hindered and finally stopped by crevasses and other obstacles, could do no more than send his Lapps to try their best on their skis, and they returned after their journey eastwards of a hundred and forty miles reporting similar monotonous conditions all along their track. Thirteen years before, he had, also from Auleitsivik Fiord, started out with Berggren; and deserted by their followers, they had gone on by themselves for some thirty miles east of the northern arm of the fiord. It was on this occasion that Berggren discovered Ancylonema, that small poly-cellular alga forming the dark masses that absorb a far greater amount of heat than the white ice and thus cause the deep holes that aid in the process of melting.
"The same plant," says Nordenskiöld, "has no doubt played the same part in our country; and we have to thank it, perhaps, that the deserts of ice which formerly covered the whole of Northern Europe and America have now given place to shady woods and undulating cornfields."
Nordenskiöld looked upon Greenland and its icefield as a broad-lipped, shallow vessel with chinks in the lip, the glacier being viscous matter within it. As more is poured in, the matter runs over the edges, taking the lines of the chinks, that is, of the fiords and valleys, as that of its outflow. In other words, the ice floats out by force of the superincumbent weight of snow just as does the grain on the floor of a barn when another sackful is shot on to the top of the heap already there. When the glacier reaches the sea it makes its way along the bottom under water for a considerable distance, in some cases, as near Avigait, for more than a mile. This is where the water is too shallow for it to affect the mass, which forms a breakwater; though as a rule the shore deepens more suddenly and the projection is less. It was long supposed that the berg broke from the glacier by force of gravity, but this is not generally so. The berg is forced off from the parent glacier by the buoyant action of the sea from beneath; the ice groans and creaks; then there is a crashing, then a roar like the discharge of artillery; and with a great regurgitation of the waves the iceberg is launched into life. These huge floating islands of ice are the most conspicuous exports of Greenland; and their true magnitude is not realised until it is remembered that only about an eighth of their bulk appears above the water. Bergs as large as liners we frequently hear of—one such is shown in our illustration—but sometimes they are of much greater freeboard, though the very large ones reported as extending along the horizon are invariably groups of several crowded together.
THE ALLAN LINER "SARDINIAN" AMONG ICEBERGS
Ancylonema has evidently plenty to do. Another instance of the important part played by the insignificant in these regions is suggested by the colour of the sea. This varies from ultramarine blue to olive-green, from the purest transparency to striking opacity; and the changes are not transitory but permanent. These patches of dark water abound with diatoms, while the bluer the water the fewer are the diatoms; and where they are most numerous, there the animals that feed on them assemble in their greatest numbers. And these animals are jellyfish, entomostracans, and, to a greater extent, pteropods, their chief representative being Clio borealis. In short, the animals that feed on the diatoms are food of the Greenland whale, and where the waters are dark the whale-fishers thrive. "I know nothing stranger than the curious tale I have unfolded," says Dr. Robert Brown, who worked out this remarkable chain, "the diatom staining the broad frozen sea, again supporting myriads of living beings which crowd there to feed on it, and these again supporting the huge whale. Thus it is no stretch of the imagination to say that the greatest animal depends for its existence on a being so minute that it takes thousands to be massed together before they are visible to the naked eye."