396 THE VOYAGE OF THE JEANNETTE. 



our zeal to save every pound of coal we can for possi- 

 ble steaming this summer, or keeping us warm next 

 winter. To quicken the process of thawing, a steam- 

 pipe was led from the steam-cutter's boiler into the 

 tank on the spar deck, and the steam driven into the 

 tank through it. As our tank holds four hundred gal- 

 lons, I am anxious to accumulate that quantity rapidly, 

 and shut down on all consumption of fuel, except for 

 the galley, as speedily as possible. Parties going out 

 to hunt return with the news that the ship is in the 

 centre of an island of ice about two and one half miles 

 in diameter, with a narrow canal running around it. 



July 1th, Wednesday. — We succeeded in getting 

 our tank filled to-day with a sufficiently pure water 

 from melted surface ice, and I accordingly directed the 

 distilling to be stopped. Thus we save sixty pounds of 

 coal per diem, and give a rest to our engineer's depart- 

 ment, which has been steadily employed in night and 

 day watches all the winter and spring ; in fact, upon 

 the firemen and coal-heavers has fallen most of the un- 

 comfortable toil, for whether in distilling, or running 

 steam-pumps, or repairing, they have not had an all- 

 night in since November. 



Such little pumping as is required, about a dozen 

 strokes every two hours, is done by the man on watch 

 for the time being, and we have now little beyond the 

 ship's routine, except watching and waiting for an open- 

 ing; in the ice that will let us free. 



Nowhere in my life have I experienced or felt such 

 a perfect silence as prevails in these icy wastes when 

 the wind dies away. It is positively maddening. After 

 ten p. M., when all noise ceases on board ship, and the 

 dogs are dozing away on ash heaps and dirty spots 

 around her, one standing a little distance apart and 



