222 THENORTHPOLE 



do), and while the igloos were being built, Marvin and 

 MacMillan made a sounding from the edge of the lead, 

 getting ninety-six fathoms. 



This march to the edge of the lead put us beyond 

 the British record of 83° 20' made by Captain Markham, 

 R. N., north of Cape Joseph Henry, May 12, 1876. 



Before daylight the next morning we heard the 

 grinding of the ice, which told us that the lead was 

 at last crushing together, and I gave the signal to 

 the other three igloos, by pounding with a hatchet on 

 the ice floor of my igloo, to fire up and get breakfast in 

 a hurry. The morning was clear again, excepting for 

 the wind haze, but the wind still continued to blow with 

 unabated violence. 



With the first of the daylight we were hurrying 

 across the lead on the raftering young ice, which was 

 moving, crushing, and piling up with the closing of the 

 sides of the lead. If the reader will imagine crossing 

 a river on a succession of gigantic shingles, one, two, 

 or three deep and all afloat and moving, he will perhaps 

 form an idea of the uncertain surface over which we 

 crossed this lead. Such a passage is distinctly trying, 

 as any moment may lose a sledge and its team, or 

 plunge a member of the party into the icy water. 

 On the other side there was no sign of Bartlett's 

 trail. This meant that the lateral movement (that is 

 east and west) of the ice shores of the lead had carried 

 the trail along with it. 



After an hour or two of marching, we found our- 

 selves in the fork of two other leads, and unable to move 

 in any direction. The young ice (that is, the recently 

 frozen ice) on the more westerly of these leads, though 



