194 THENORTHPOLE 



hot bricks to keep our toes and fingers warm. Such 

 ideas are distinctly different from the truth, as will 

 appear. 



There is no land between Cape Columbia and the 

 North Pole and no smooth and very little level ice. 



For a few miles only after leaving the land we had 

 level going, as for those few miles we were on the 

 "glacial fringe." This fringe, which fills all the bays 

 and extends across the whole width of North Grant 

 Land, is really an exaggerated ice-foot; in some places 

 it is miles in width. While the outer edge in places is 

 afloat and rises and falls with the movement of the 

 tides, it never moves as a body, except where great 

 fields of ice break off from it and float away upon the 

 waters of the Arctic Ocean. 



Beyond the glacial fringe is the indescribable surface 

 of the shore lead, or tidal crack — that zone of unceasing 

 conflict between the heavy floating ice and the station- 

 ary glacial fringe. This shore lead is constantly open- 

 ing and shutting; opening when there are offshore 

 winds, or spring ebb-tides, crushing shut when there are 

 northerly winds or spring flood-tides. Here the ice is 

 smashed into fragments of all sizes and piled up into 

 great pressure ridges parallel with the shore. 



The ice is smashed into these pressure ridges by the 

 sheer and unimaginable force with which the floes are 

 driven against the edge of the glacial fringe, just as 

 farther out the pressure ridges are caused by the force 

 with which the great floes themselves are crushed and 

 smashed together by the force of the wind and the tides. 



These pressure ridges may be anywhere from a few 

 feet to a few rods in height; they may be anywhere from 



