AUTUMN AT CAPE SHERIDAN 63 



musk oxen. Two marches from the shiptook me to the 

 mouth of Clements Markham Inlet, one day of thick 

 weather was devoted to a trip part way into the inlet 

 and back; and the next two brought me back to the 

 ship, my anxiety for her having prevented my re- 

 maining out as long as I wished. It was a new and 

 not particularly agreeable feeling to me to be hampered 

 by the cares of a ship, and thus kept from active field- 

 work, but I accepted the conditions and shifted the 

 burden of the remainder of the fall and winter work 

 to the younger shoulders in the party. On the 9th, 

 our large winter lamps were put in commission for 

 the first time. On the 13th, I snowshoed to the sum- 

 mit of Black Cape and saw the sun for the last time, 

 peering for a moment through the misty ice-filled 

 opening of Robeson Channel to the south. From 

 Cape Sheridan, past Rawson, and on down past Cape 

 Union there was plenty of open water and across the 

 mouth of the channel to Repulse Harbour there was 

 nothing but light trash ice. For a few moments the 

 sun's rays lit the entire southern summit line of the 

 United States Range, crested Mount Cheops with rose, 

 and just touched the peaks of Cape Joseph Henry. 

 It was so low, however, that the shadow both of Green- 

 land and of Grant Land reached northward across the 

 pack ice to the blue-black northern horizon except 

 where it streamed through between the precipitous 

 walls of the Channel itself forming a broad band of 

 yellow light between the shadows on either side, 

 "the Gateway to the Polar Sea." 



October i6th was marked by the most violent gale 

 we had had since leaving home. This gale left the 



