472 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



night, wlien the sun was low. By this arrangement they had the ad- 

 vantage also of sleei^ing during the comparative warmth of the day. 

 The daily allowance of jDrovisions per man was 1 lb. of biscuit, |- lb. of 

 preserved meat, 1 oz. of sugar, and 1 pint of spirits. The total weight 

 carried on the cart was 800 lbs., consisting of two blanket-tents, wood 

 lor fuel, three weeks' provisions, cooking-apparatus, three guns, and 

 ammunition. In addition to this, each man had to carry a blanket- 

 bag, a haversack with one pair of shoes, one pair of stockings, and a 

 flannel shirt, weighing from 18 to 24 lbs. Their tents were made of 

 blankets, with two boarding-pikes fixed across at each end, and a 

 ridge-rope along the top, the lower parts of the blankets being kept 

 down by placing stones on them. 



In his attempt to reach the pole, in 1827, Parry started in the same 

 month of June, with four officers and twenty-four men, with seventy- 

 one days' provisions, in two flat-bottomed boats named the Enter- 

 prise and Endeavor, so constructed that they could be used as 

 sledges, and drawn on the ice. They were 20 feet long, and 7 feet 

 broad, with a bamboo mast 19 feet long, a tanned duck-sail, steer- 

 oar, fourteen paddles, a sprit and boat-hook. Each boat, with stores, 

 etc., complete, weighed 3,753 lbs., making the weight for each man to 

 drag 268 lbs. ! in addition to four liglit sledges, weighing 26 lbs. each. 

 The boats were squarely built, without regard to shape or symmetry, 

 their beam carried well forward and aft. In order to secui-e elasticity 

 during the roiigh handling which they must needs encounter from 

 frequent concussions with the ice, their frame was first covered with a 

 water-proof coating, consisting of tarred canvas, then a thin fir plank- 

 ing, which latter was covered with felt, and outside a thin oak plank- 

 ing, the whole secured to the timbers of the boat by iron screws. On 

 either side of the keel was a stout wooden runner, shod with metal, 

 similar to that of a sledge, on which the boat Avould travel when being 

 dragged over the ice. A spar, made of hide, was secured across the 

 fore-end of the runners, to which the drag-ropes were attached. The 

 daily allowance of provisions for each man was 10 ozs. of biscuit, 9 ozs. 

 of pemmican, 1 oz. of cocoa-powder, and 1 gill of rum, besides 3 ozs. of 

 tobacco i^er man per week. The fuel used was spirits of wine, of which 

 2 pints were used daily. 



This was one of the most laborious and heart-breaking journeys 

 that can be conceived, as, owing to the lateness of the season, the trav- 

 eling was chiefly over loose pack, which on account of unusual heavy 

 rain was bi'oken and rotten ; added to this, the hummocky nature of 

 the firmer ice necessitated a constant packing and unpacking of their 

 sledges, the same ground having to be traversed as many as three 

 and sometimes four times. Parry nobly persevered, fighting against 

 obstacles that would have daunted and appalled many a brave man, 

 xmtil it was known that the drift of the ice on which they were trav- 

 eling was faster to the southward than the progress they were mak- 



