NORTH POLE OF THE WINDS 



en route to Copenhagen and had been engaged day 

 after day under the direction of Dr. Rasmussen 

 searching for the flyers who were now returning 

 with us to civihzation. The ship had come into 

 port while we were away. Dr. Rasmussen was not 

 on board, having already left for Copenhagen on 

 a tramp-ship just before our arrival. Earlier in 

 the season he had gone to the Scotch University 

 at Aberdeen to receive an honorary degree, one of 

 many well merited honors conferred upon him. 

 Captain Peterssen, his skipper, was carrying his 

 arm in a sling as the result of an argument with 

 a polar bear in north Greenland some weeks before. 

 At five in the afternoon the Fulton had her 

 cargo under hatches and we steamed away from 

 the loading pier with our good friends waving us 

 a hon voyage from the shore. The hatches were 

 now battened down and we steamed down the Ar- 

 sukf jord into a bad western gale and for between 

 thirty and forty miles after leaving the Umanak 

 at the mouth of the fjord we were in a heavy trough 

 sea. Our cargo of cryolite in the hold kept us off 

 our beam ends, but we still lurched heavily, and 

 as the ore was on steep surface slopes just as it had 

 fallen from the cranes, slides of the ore would 

 bring up against the rusty side plates of the ship 

 with a resounding bang. The Fulton is fifty-one 



324 



