Title: The American Museum journal
Identifier: americanmuseumjo18amer (find matches)
Year: c1900-(1918) (c190s)
Authors: American Museum of Natural History
Subjects: Natural history
Publisher: New York : American Museum of Natural History
Contributing Library: American Museum of Natural History Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Biodiversity Heritage Library

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Gourti'sii of E. O. Hovey View of North Star Bay, northwest coast of Greenland. — At the right Dundas Mountain rises 700 feet above the sea level. About one mile from its base can be seen the houses of Thule Station, scientific base for Danish Arctic exploration and trading station established by Mr. Knud Rasmussen for the Smitli Sound Eskimos in 1910. Mr. Peter Freuchen is resident manager of the station lowed by Peary in 1892 and 1895, and reached Danmarks Fjord (just south of In- dependence Fjord at the northeast corner of Greenland). This expedition made surveys at the head of Independence Fjord, which enforced the 1907 discovery of the unfortu- nate Mylius Erichsen that "Peary Channel" of the maps was nonexistent, Independence Fjord a fjord only, and Peary Land not a separate "land" but a part of the coast of North Greenland. Rasmussen planned a Second Thule Expe- dition for the summer of 1916 to complete the surveys of this region, particularly the inlets and fjords of the coast between Inde- pendence and Sherard Osborn fjords. For the second expedition he left Copenhagen in April, 1916, by the mail steamer to Holstens- borg. From there he traveled by sledge northward and across Melville Bay to North Star Bay. He reached this point too late, however, to complete the necessary prepara- tions and start northward across the ice cap by June 1, as planned. It was therefore necessary to postpone the work until 1917, spending the winter of 1916-17 at Thule. This led to the great advantage, however, of affording opportunity to make a very early start in 1917, when the sea was still frozen over. Thus the original plan of crossing the inland ice cap to reach the unexplored areas, following the route of the First Thule Expe- dition, was abandoned, and the sea-ice route determined upon, northward through Ken- nedy Channel to Fort Conger, across Robeson Channel to the Greenland coast, thence north- eastward, mapping the coast with its fjords to Peary Land. The expedition left Thule April 4, 1917, as reported by Dr. E. O. Hovey who, as a member of the first relief ship sent north- ward for the Crocker Land Expedition, was wintering at North Star Bay at the time. Rasmussen visited MacMillan at Etah on the way northward about April 10. He was ac- companied by Dr. T. Wulflf, Swedish botan- ist, Lauge Koch, geologist and cartographer, several Smith Sound Eskimos, and by Hen- drik Olsen, a Greenlander who had been a mem))er of the early Danmark East Coast I)xpedition. Rasmussen's plans included liv- ing on the supplies furnished by the coun- 391

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