viii FINDING THE NORTH POLE 



tion was whether we should abandon the ship in the springtime and 

 take the summer march as the ship was drifting beyond any known 

 march of record, and try to reach a place of succor, or whether we 

 should remain by the ship and "eat her out" and take the chances 

 of the march in the long winter night. 



The arguments against the winter night march were as fol- 

 lows : That we could' not procure fresh water to drink by melting 

 the snows with our alcohol lamps because the snow where we found 

 it in the winter season was saturated with salt; the grinding and 

 pulverizing of the salt-water hummocks, by the wind-driven snow 

 acting as a sand blast, mixed the salt ice with the snow. As a 

 point to remember I will here state the fact that during the whole 

 of the drift of the "Jeannette," twenty-two months, we were never 

 able to procure one pound of fresh-water snow, not even out of the 

 ship's tops, that was fresh enough when melted to make potable 

 water. Every ounce of water used in the "Jeannette" for drinking 

 purposes was distilled. 



To travel in the AVctic darkness heretofore had always seemed' 

 impossible because of the inability to see how to go, or follow a 

 compass course. 



The cold, being more intense in the winter time, would require 

 warmer clothing and foot gear to prevent frost bite; the searching 

 winds that neither man nor beast can stand up against would neces- 

 sitate the usual camping down in a hole dug in the snow untfl 

 the cessation of the storm. There was, and is, greater danger from 

 possibility of frost bite disabling the whole party, because no man 

 can be abandoned on the march while he is alive. I have personally 

 had the majority of a boat's crew disabled from frost bite in the 

 month of October. With heavier clothing the party is handicapped 

 in marching and hauling the sledges which is constant, besides the 

 inability to sleep at night even in the warmest reindeer sleeping- 

 bags. For as the chill of death comes upon the sleepers all hands 

 must break out and thrash about to put the blood into circulation 

 before again trying to turn in to sleep. 



