Evening star., 1924-08-09
ICE IN GREENLAND
|MPER|LS A|RMEN
East Coast Is Called "Most
InhospitabIe Shore
in World"

With measurably green Iceland be-
hind them, the American round-the-
world flyers will recognize Green
land because of the ice.
Such. says bulletin from the
Washington headquarters of the Ma
tional Geographic Society. are some
of the paradoxes of geography.
"Gseenland may look good to the
American airmen because it is on
the fringe of the home continent"
the bulletin continues, but they will
find it vastly different from their
own land, especially on the east
coast, at Angmagsalik, where the
first stop is scheduled.
Guarded By Ice.
This east coast of Greenland has
been dubbed the most inhospitable
shore in the world. A broad stream
of fcebergs and smaller fragments of
ice constantly is moving southwark
along the coast, forming a barrier
that is impenetrabIe by ships for a
large part of the year. The airmen
may fly over this with ease if all
goes well, but their ability to land
successfully on the floating ice in
case they are forced down is prob
lematical
The ice is troublesome in still
another way. because it may prevent
the landing of supplies. After the
airmen ny over the offshore barrier.
however. they are likely to find bays
+ and inlets wholly free of ice at this
season.
"Angnagsalik is the only perma-
nent settlement on the east coast.
Its population consists of several
hundred ha frtl
OF DaneS-a trader, missionary. doctor
and few minor officials. In the sum-
iner considerable volume of water
flows from glacial rivers centering at
magsalik, which tends to make
an opening in the drifting offshore
ice. There is a better chance of a
ships getting through at that station,
therefore, than at most other points
on the east coast
Following Path of Erik the Rcd.
When the flyers leave the east
coast, they will strike southwark.
skirt the southern end of Greenland
at Cape Farewell and fly a short dis
tance northward on the western coast
to 1vigtut They will be tracing in
the air the path that was followed
by that famous old Viking. Erik the
Red, who discovered Greenland from
1seland in 983 A. D., and lived to see
his son, Left Ericsson, push on to
America along the rema ainder of the
airmen's route.
AT Ivigtut the flyers will be near
the remains of one of the most inter
eSting colonies the world has known,
the settlement build up on the edge
of America by Erik and his followers
and conducted as a Christian COM
munity 500 years before Columbus
crossed the Atlantic. On the narrow
ice-free strip of coast some 5000
men of Norwegian blood maintained
this colony and another farther north
for several centuries. In addition to
substantial houses they had a cathe-
dral, 16 churches, a monastery and a
nunnery. A resident bishop lived at
the southern settlement.
Worlds Hughest Block of Ice.
eff the airmen should strike across
from the east to the west coast. in
stead of doubling Cape Farewell, they
would survey unique terrain.
Greenland's mountains are icy as the
missionary song has it.
All mountains that are high enough
are icy even under the equator. But
the song missed the real point.
Greenland's valleys are icy-filled
doubtful if anywhere else in the
world such a tremendous ice sheet
exists as in Greeland. The SHOWS
of perhaps a dozen more millen-
niums have built up crystal blanket
that in places is six or seven thou
sand feet thick. 1t has buried val
leys, hills and mountains alike, maxi
ing central Greenland into a huge
snow and ice plateau, single tre-
mendous glacier, with countless ten
tacles that extend down into the
coast fjords, ever feeding icebergs to
the ocean.
Greenland is the largest island in
the world, having aH area of 100000
or more square miles. SO vast is the
land and so huge the icecap that it is
estimated that if Greenlands ice were
spread out over the United States it
would cover the entire country a
quarter of a mile deep