No one knew what there might be within that vast region. The Eskimos were often on its edge when hunting the reindeer, but had never ventured far. They were terrified at the mighty solitude. At last curiosity overcame fear in the case of a trader named Lars Dalager, who was at Frederikshaab, one of the most southern Greenland stations. With a few Eskimos, he went up to the head of a fjord to the south of the _iisblink_ on September 2nd, 1751, and advanced for a few days over very rough ice. He noticed the extreme cold of the inland ice and sighted mountain peaks which he supposed to be on the eastern coast, but they have since been found to be _nunataks_ or mountain peaks rising out of the great snowy expanse. He returned to his boat after five days. The men of science who visited Greenland somewhat later, Fabricius in the days of Krantz, and the German Geisecke in 1806–13, only reached the edge of the inland ice, though it engaged much of their attention. The well-known Alpine traveller Whymper made two attempts from Disco Bay in 1867 and 1872, but without result. Several persons, such as Steenstrup, Kornerup, and Holm, made observations on the rate of movement of the glaciers and it was found to vary in different localities. The first really serious expeditions were those of Nordenskiöld in 1870 and 1883. In the former year the accomplished Swedish explorer selected the northern arm of the Auleitsivik fjord, twenty miles north of Godthaab, as his point of entrance into the unknown. He was accompanied by the botanist Dr Berggren. On the 19th July they reached the ice cap by a cleft, and finding the surface impassable for a sledge they abandoned it, and went on with a few necessaries on their backs. Passing the region of broken-up ice and cleft and favoured by good weather, they came to a perceptible rise, with a smoother surface, and reached their furthest point 2200 feet above the sea and 30 miles west of the Auleitsivik fjord, returning after six days. Nordenskiöld found rivers and streams on the surface. The explorers went along the bank of one great river until the whole mass of water poured down a perpendicular cleft into the depths.