8o NEAREST THE POLE 



they were as tardy as if moored to a rock. At all these 

 times the pianola, Mr. Benedict's splendid gift, was 

 invaluable, soothing and lightening many an hour, 

 and sending me back to my work refreshed and with 

 new energy. For rest and recreation from the monot- 

 ony of incessant planning about the spring campaign, 

 I began upon plans for another ship of the same general 

 size and model of the Roosevelt for Arctic or Ant- 

 arctic work, but with improvements and details 

 modified in the light of experience gained with the 

 Roosevelt. 



November ist I placed a minimum self-registering 

 thermometer on the top of a hill 410 feet high about 

 a mile distant from the Roosevelt. On the 2d 

 among other work some baled hay was opened for use 

 in connection with the snow houses ashore, and the 

 perfume of it brought back a rush of associations. 

 What a contrast — this frozen night-canopied land- 

 and sea-scape, and warm summei' hayfields in God's 

 country. It does not seem as if both could be upon 

 the same planet. 



On the 8 th four families of Eskimos came in from 

 the Ruggles River. They have been in the field 

 twenty-seven days and have secured some seventy- 

 five musk-oxen, thirty to forty hare and twenty to 

 twenty-five foxes. Besides musk-ox meat they brought 

 in some hundred pounds of the peerless salmon trout 

 from Lake Hazen. 



On the 15 th an aurora, one of several successive 

 displays of no great brilliancy, was in several respects 

 different from any that I had ever noticed. Occurring 

 in the east directly over some pools of open water it 



