92 THENORTHPOLE 



tides from the fact that on the shores of the Polar Sea 

 the mean rise is only a little over a foot, while in the 

 narrowest part of the channel the tide rises and falls 

 twelve or fourteen feet. 



As a rule, looking across the channel, there seems 

 to be no water — nothing but uneven and tortured 

 ice. When the tide is at the ebb, the ship follows the 

 narrow crack of water between the shore and the moving 

 pack of the center, driving ahead with all her force; then, 

 when the flood tide begins to rush violently southward, 

 the ship must hurry to shelter in some niche of the shore 

 ice, or behind some point of rock, to save herself from 

 destruction or being driven south again. 



This method of navigation, however, is one of con- 

 stant hazard, as it keeps the vessel between the im- 

 movable rocks and the heavy and rapidly drifting 

 ice, with the ever-present possibility of being crushed 

 between the two. My knowledge of the ice conditions 

 of these channels and their navigation was absolutely 

 my own, gained in former years of traveling along 

 the shores and studying them for this very purpose. 

 On my various expeditions I had walked every foot 

 of the coast line, from Payer Harbor on the south to 

 Cape Joseph Henry on the north, from three to eight 

 times. I knew every indentation of that coast, every 

 possible shelter for a ship, every place where icebergs 

 usually grounded, and the places where the tide ran 

 strongest, as accurately as a tugboat captain in New 

 York harbor knows the piers of the North River water 

 front. When Bartlett was in doubt as to making a 

 risky run, with the chance of not finding shelter for 

 the ship, I could usually say to him: 



