42 COOK'S STORY OF HIS DISCOVERY OF NORTH POLE 



report of our trip to the Pole, the day and year it started and a record 

 of the journey. I have brought back the most exact observations 

 absolutely proving my statement. I have kept a diary throughout 

 my entire expedition, in which I recorded the most minute details. 



"On April 23d we started on our return. We were forced to 

 take a more westerly route, and the first ten days I took observations 

 daily and recorded them. I was unable to measure the depth of the 

 sea, as I had not the necessary instruments. The coming back was 

 much harder in every way. It took us only from February iQth to 

 April 2 ist to reach the Pole. We were a year coming back, includ- 

 ing the delay in summer. The daily distance covered on the north- 

 ward trip was slightly less than fifteen miles ; on the southward trip 

 it was ten miles. The ice was broken up by pressure and traveling 

 was far more difficult. There were open leads. We ran short of 

 nothing going out, but on the return trip our provisions rapidly 

 decreased in quantity, and the food for man and dog was reduced to 

 a three-quarter ration, while the difficulties of the route increased 

 until they became disheartening. After passing the eighty-fourth 

 parallel there remained on our sleds scarcely enough food to reach 

 our caches on Nansen Sound unless we averaged fifteen miles daily, 

 but with our reduced strength and the hostile conditions we were 

 hardly equal to ten miles daily. 



"We took a straight course for the musk-ox lands, but after a 

 twenty days' struggle through thick fog we found ourselves far 

 down in Crown Prince Gustav Sea, with open water and impassable 

 small ice as a barrier between us and Heiborg Island. The drift 

 had carried us far out of our intended course. Food .and fuel were 

 now exhausted, but polar bears came along as life savers and for a 

 time the dread of starvation left us. With them we went into 

 Wellington Channel, hoping to be able to reach the whalers in Lan- 

 caster Sound, but we were soon stopped by failing food supplies and 

 jammed small ice. 



"Without game this short route to an early ship was no longer 



