PARRY'S DASH FOR THE POLE 41 



ash and hickory timbers, an inch by an inch and a half 

 thick, placed a foot apart, with a half-timber of smaller 

 size between each, was stretched a casing of waterproof 

 canvas tarred on the outer side and protected by a skin 

 of fir three-sixteenths of an inch thick, over this came 

 a sheet of stout felt, and over all a skin of oak of the 

 same thickness as the fir, each boat weighing about 

 fourteen hundredweight that is the hull, as launched. 

 One of these boats was named the Enterprise, the other 

 the Endeavour. They were intended to be hauled by 

 reindeer, but the state of the ice rendered this imprac- 

 ticable and the men did the work themselves. Parry 

 took command of the Enterprise, the other being in 

 charge of Lieutenant James Clark Ross ; and, alto- 

 gether, officers and men numbered twenty-eight. 



From Little Table Island, where they left a reserve 

 as they had done at Walden, they started for the north 

 two heavy boats laden with food for seventy days 

 and clothing for twenty-eight men, with a compact 

 equipment including light sledges, travelling in a sea 

 crowded or covered with ice in every form, large and 

 small, over which they were dragged up and down 

 hummocks, round and among crags and ridges, along 

 surfaces of every kind of ruggedness, of every slope 

 and irregularity, the few flat stretches broken with 

 patches of sharp crystals or waist-deep snow ; through 

 lanes and pools of water with frequent ferryings and 

 transhipments, in sunshine and fog, and, strange to 

 say, frequently in pouring rain. They travelled by 

 night and rested by day, though, of course, there was 

 daylight all the time. " The advantages of this plan," 

 says Parry, "which was occasionally deranged by cir- 



