246 SMITH SOUND 



God Bay. There in November he died ; and close by 

 is Hall's Rest, where he is buried. 



His death was the end of the enterprise. Budding- 

 ton wished to return as soon as the ship was released, 

 and eventually had his way, after a journey or two of 

 little importance. But he stayed too long. The ship 

 was clear in June, and he did not start until the 1st of 

 August, and he started by driving her into the pack, 

 anchored her to a floe, and drifted helplessly into 

 Baffin Bay, as De Haven had done through Lancaster 

 Sound in 1850. For eleven weeks the drift continued 

 until she was off Northumberland Island on the 15th 

 of October. Here in the middle of the night a violent 

 gale arose, and the crippled ship, nipped between two 

 masses of ice, was lifted bodily and thrown on her side, 

 her timbers cracking loudly and her sides apparently 

 breaking in. Two boats, all she had, were hurriedly 

 got on to the ice, and provisions, stores, and clothing 

 were being passed out, when with a roar the floe 

 broke asunder, and the Polaris disappeared like a 

 phantom in the gale. As the ice cracked and the 

 sides lurched apart, a bundle of fur lay across the 

 fissure. A grab was made at it, and the bundle was 

 saved. It contained the baby of Joe the Eskimo, 

 whose wife had been confined the year before in lati- 

 tude 82, perhaps the most northerly birthplace of any 

 of this world's inhabitants. 



On the ice were Tyson, with Sergeant Meyer, the 

 steward, the cook, six sailors, and nine Eskimos, men, 

 women, and children, including Hans and Joe. They 

 built a house, from the materials thrown out from the 

 ship, as a shelter ; and they built snow houses as the time 



