250 SMITH SOUND 



Kennedy Channel. On Washington Irving Island an 

 ancient cairn was found, evidently the work of white 

 men's hands and of great age, as shown by the state of 

 the lichens on it yet another of the many indications 

 in the Polar regions that there was always a somebody 

 before the first on record. Crossing the mouth of 

 Archer Fiord, a snug harbour was found in 81 44', 

 where the Discovery was left to spend the winter, the 

 Alert going on, hampered much by the floes, though 

 helped at last by a south-westerly wind, until she had 

 to stop in 82 27' on the shore of the Polar Ocean, at 

 what was named Floeberg Beach, off an open coast 

 and with no more protection during the winter than 

 was afforded by masses of ice ranging up to sixty feet 

 in height aground in from eight to twelve fathoms of 

 water. 



" The protected space," says Nares, " available for 

 shelter was so contracted and shallow, the entrance to 

 it so small, and the united force of the wind and flood- 

 tide so powerful, that it was with much labour and no 

 trifling expense in broken hawsers that the ship was 

 hauled in stern foremost. It was a close race whether 

 the ice or the ship would be in first, and my anxiety 

 was much relieved when I saw the ship's bow swing 

 clear into safety just as the advancing edge of the 

 heavy pack closed in against the outside of our friendly 

 barrier of ice. From our position of comparative 

 security the danger we had so narrowly escaped was 

 strikingly apparent as we gazed with wonder and awe 

 at the power exerted by the ice driven past us to the 

 eastward with irresistible force by the wind and flood- 

 tide at the rate of about a mile an hour. The pro- 



