CHAPTER III 



AUTUMN AT CAPE SHERIDAN 



IT WAS hoped that the next ebb-tide would give 

 us an opportunity to advance farther, and 

 immediately after breakfast I hurried ashore to examine 

 the ice beyond Cape Sheridan and visit the cairn built 

 by the Alert thirty years before. The weather was too 

 thick to permit any satisfactory reconnoissance. I 

 took the Alert's record from the cairn, a copy of which 

 Marvin later replaced together with an additional 

 brief memorandum. All the slopes of the land were 

 white with snow above which the cairn, and the lonely 

 grave of Petersen, Danish interpreter of the English 

 expedition, stood out in sombre silhouette. The Roose- 

 velt was moored close by a ledge of rocks where, in 

 1902, I had deposited a small cache for my return. 



With the last of the flood-tide the ice pressed in 

 upon us still harder, jamming the Roosevelt solidly 

 but not seriously against the ice-foot; and anticipating 

 still further pressures, I had the edge of the ice-foot 

 throughout the Roosevelt's length chopped away on 

 an incline to the water level, so that the ship might 

 rise more easily to pressure. A fine snow fell through- 

 out the day. At midnight of the 5 th, the sun's disk 

 was apparently about two-thirds below the horizon. 

 The fine snow continued during the sixth and 

 the ice remained unchanged. After supper water 



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