256 THE NORTH POLE 



the most primitive ages to our own, has always imagined 

 a sympathetic relationship between nature and the 

 events and feelings of human life. So — in the light 

 of later events — admitting that I felt a peculiar awe 

 in contemplating the ghastly grayness of that day, I 

 am expressing only an ineradicable instinct of the race 

 to which I belong. 



The first three-quarters of the march after Marvin 

 turned back, on March 26, the trail was fortunately 

 in a straight line, over large level snow-covered floes 

 of varying height, surrounded by medium-rough old 

 rafters of ice; and the last quarter was almost entirely 

 over young ice averaging about one foot thick, broken 

 and raftered, presenting a rugged and trying surface 

 to travel over in the uncertain light. Without Bart- 

 lett's trail to follow, the march would have been even 

 more difficult. 



Near the end of the day we were again deflected 

 to the west some distance by an open lead. Whenever 

 the temperature rose as high as minus 15°, where it had 

 stood at the beginning of the day, we were sure of 

 encountering open water. But just before we reached 

 the camp of Bartlett's pioneer division, the gray haze 

 in which we had traveled all day lifted, and the sun 

 came out clear and brilliant. The temperature had 

 also dropped to minus 20°. Bartlett was just starting 

 out again when I arrived, and we agreed that we had 

 made a good fifteen miles in the last march. 



The next day, March 27, was a brilliant dazzling 

 day of arctic sunshine, the sky a glittering blue, and the 

 ice a glittering white, which, but for the smoked goggles 

 worn by every member of the party, would certainly 



