878 APPENDIX. 



beef if no seal, maccaroni, and potatoes, beets or carrots or onions, 

 duff. Supper : Tea, milk, sugar, bread, butter, seal hash, canned 

 fruit. 



Average per day 3 pounds, 15f ounces each person. 



APPENDIX E. (See page 251.) 



Extracts from a Memorandum by Dr. Ambler on Ice formed by Sea 

 Water. 



Thk following observations were made during the winter of 1879-80, 

 at which time the Arctic Steamer Jeannette was beset in the pack to 

 the north and west of Herald Island, in about 72° to 73° north lati- 

 tude. As we were out of reach of land, we had to depend for our 

 supply of water either upon the melting of snow or sea water ice, or 

 14)011 distillation of the sea water itself. The statements of previous 

 explorers that they had no difficulty in procuring a sufficient supply of 

 ice, yielding a pure and potable water, had been accepted, and we had 

 no doubt but that our own experience would be the same. 



Expeditions wintering along the land can, of course, always draw 

 their supply of fresh water ice from the shore. Those who were un- 

 fortunately compelled to winter in the pack, obtained their supply 

 from pools melted during the summer on the surface of the floe and 

 refrozen. This, possibly, from the probable large admixture of land ice, 

 both from glaciers and water-courses, and from the heavier falls of snow 

 on the Smith's Sound route, may have given an absolutely pure water. 

 Our experience has been different. I have failed to find any ice of 

 any degree of thickness up to five feet, or ice from any pools found on 

 the floe surface that woidd give a water absolutely free from salt. 

 The snow-fall was not great, and as it was naturally very dry from the 

 extreme cold, it Avas, of course, readily moved by the wind, and it took 

 but a short time for it to become mingled with the loose granular ice 

 on the surface of the floe. The wind, too, driving it with considerable 

 force, may have caused the crystals to act as a sand-blast on the sur- 

 face of the hummocks, and thus a mixture of snow and salt water ice 

 made which contained a very large amount of salt. For some time 

 we used water obtained from the ice of pools and from the snow, 

 selecting it with care, and obtained a water that was potable, but not 

 pure, and the use of which should not be long continued. Finally, we 

 could not find it sufficiently pure to warrant its use, and we commenced 

 to distill. 



