240 THE VOYAGE OF THE JEANNETTE. 



the main engine. He tried the combination to-day, 

 using steam from the main boiler, and found that the 

 engine had to run so fast to develop the necessary 

 power to work the pump without the engine catching 

 on the centre that the pump was driven too fast to lift 

 any water. Hence he has to make a gearing to regu- 

 late the work of the pump, and, energetic as he is, to 

 see an improvement is to commence to make it. At 

 one p. M. the ice began to move, and from that time 

 until eight p. m. we were getting nips and pressures 

 at a few moments' interval. We are so accustomed 

 to these alarms now that we take them quietly, thank- 

 ful when they end, and knowing we are helpless pend- 

 ing their duration, 



February Uh, Wednesday. — The Sewell pump is 

 kept going all day as usual, but we find that by run- 

 ning it thirty-five strokes a minute we hold the water 

 in check ; that is, keep it at a uniform depth of sixteen 

 inches in the fire-room. We have reduced the amount 

 of leak 282 gallons an hour within the last few days, 

 and 1,695 gallons an hour since the first occurrence. 

 Were it not for the expenditure of fuel we .should be 

 doing first rate ; but when we burn 1,200 pounds of 

 coal a day, and have only eighty-five tons left to-day, 

 it is not only a matter of simple calculation to find out 

 how long it will last, but it seems to make our staying 

 out another winter a matter of considerable doubt. We 

 are driving ahead, trying to hurry up the steam-cutter 

 arrangement, hoping, while the Baxter pumps forward, 

 the cutter-engine will pump out aft, and let us do away 

 with fires under the main boiler. This will reduce our 

 coal expenditure fifty per cent. Nindemann and Sweet= 

 man have about finished the filling in business, watch- 

 ino; their work now to ram in more ashes as fast as old 

 fillings settle. 



