UNDER THE MIDNIGHT SUN. 313 



As the sun continues to set later and later we shall ere- 

 long resolve our doubts. 



Ajyril 1th, Wednesday. — Having finished all our 

 connections with the new pump rig, and all being in 

 readiness, the combination was tried this afternoon. It 

 worked to a charm. The flood-gates were opened, and 

 all the water was allowed to come aft as freely as it 

 pleased. The Baxter then took hold and pumped it 

 out. While waiting for more to come aft, a source of 

 difficulty was discovered wdiich forces us to suspend the 

 rig until milder weather. The discharge is necessarily 

 through a canvas hose leading from the fire-room hatch 

 across the spar deck to a convenient scupper, and so 

 to a hole which was dug in the ditch on the starboard 

 side through to the surface of the w^ater. This hole, of 

 course, had to be covered immediately with a wooden 

 box and a snow-house to protect the Avater from ex- 

 posure to the open air and its temperature of minus 

 20° at times. But we could not keep the canvas hose 

 and the top of the pump from exposure to tlie air, and 

 consequently, while the pump was necessarily " spelled " 

 to wait for water, ice formed in the canvas hose and 

 choked it up. The flood-gates were again closed, and 

 the water accumulated in the fire-room from time to 

 time was pumped out as before by the steam-cutter's 

 engine, while the remaining bilge-pump forward was 

 worked by hand as required. This we found to be 

 from five to ten minutes every half hour. The fires 

 under the Baxter were allowed to die out. 



Our friend the seal comes still often enough to 

 breathe to keep a hole open in the centre of our sound- 

 ing hole, and so the ice is prevented from forming with 

 an}^ degree of regularity. 



The ice was in motion immediately after sunrise, and 



