HORRORS OF THE "JEANNETTE" EXPEDITION 337 



to go across the chest and one shoulder and attached to the sled by a 

 lanyard. It was a terrible strain, through softened snow knee-deep 

 and ice rough and full of fissures, over which the boats had to be 

 jumped or ferried, while the sledges were dragged over large 

 hummocks. 



Taking the first cutter to a point marked by ice-pilot Dunbar, 

 they had to return several times for the others, so that it took three 

 hours to make the first mile and a half, and in the succeeding days 

 a mile or mile and a half a day was the limit. The men had to go 

 over the road thirteen times seven times drawing loads and six 

 times empty handed so that twenty-six miles of travel were neces- 

 sary to make an advance of two. And so many of them were 

 invalided that twenty-one had to do the work for the whole. 



This was bad enough, but worse was known to the captain 

 and kept secret by him. Observations taken at the end of a week 

 showed him that the ice drift had more than robbed them of the 

 fruits of their labor. They had drifted twenty-seven miles to the 

 northwest farther than they had marched to the south! Near the 

 end of June the snow melted and traveling grew easier, their thir- 

 teen daily journeys over the same ground being reduced to seven. 

 But the pools of thaw water kept their feet constantly wet. 



On the nth of July their eyes were gladdened by the sight of 

 land in the distance, but the steady ice-drift made their progress so 

 slow that it was the 28th before they were able to set foot on it. Its 

 shore was so steep that a landing proved hard to make, yet by 7 P. M. 

 everybody was on shore, the silk flag was unfurled and possession 

 was taken in the name of the President of the United States. The 

 island was christened Bennett Island, in honor of Mr. J. G. Bennett, 

 the patron of the expedition. 



The ship's company encamped here for several days, glad of a 

 period of rest and a change of diet, sea-birds being numerous on 

 the small volcanic island and easily caught. But a surfeit of bird 

 meat brought on sickness and they soon had to go back to pern- 



