inland-ice
on the northern part of Novaya Zemlya, but doubtless the experience
I have previously gained during an excursion with Dr. Berggren on
the inland-ice of Greenland in the month of July 1870, _after all
the snow on it had melted_, and with Captain Palander on the
inland-ice of North-East Land in the beginning of June 1873, _before
any melting of snow had commenced_, is also applicable to the
ice-wilderness of north Novaya Zemlya.

[Illustration: SECTION OF INLAND-ICE.
A. Open glacier-canal.
B. Snow-filled canal.
C. Canal concealed by a snow-vault.
D. Glacier-clefts. ]

As on Spitzbergen the ice-field here is doubtless interrupted by
deep bottomless clefts, over which the snowstorms of winter throw
fragile snow-bridges, which conceal the openings of the abysses so
completely that one may stand close to their edge without having any
suspicion that a step further is certain death to the man, who,
without observing the usual precaution of being bound by a rope to
his companions, seeks his way over the blinding-white, almost
velvet-like, surface of this snow-field, hard packed indeed, but
bound together by no firm crust. If a man, after taking necessary
precautions against the danger of tumbling down into these
crevasses, betakes himself farther into the country in the hope that
the apparently even surface of the snow will allow of long day's
marches, he is soon disappointed in his expectations; for he comes
to regions where the ice is everywhere crossed by narrow
depressions, _canals_, bounded by dangerous clefts, with
perpendicular walls up to fifteen metres in height. One can cross
these depressions only alter endless zigzag wanderings, at places
where they have become filled with snow and thereby passable. In
summer again, when the snow has melted, the surface of the
ice-wilderness has quite a different appearance. The snow has
disappeared and the ground is now formed of a blue ice, which
however is not clean, but everywhere rendered dirty by a grey
argillaceous dust, carried to the surface of the glacier by wind and
rain, probably from distant mountain heights. Among this clay, and
even directly on the ice itself, there is a scanty covering of low
vegetable organisms. The ice-deserts of the Polar lands are thus the
habitat of a peculiar flora, which, insignificant as it appears to
be, forms however an important condition for the issue of the
conflict which goes on here, year after year, century after centu