50 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



every little hole between the ice masses was filled with debris by 

 the crushing of the floe edges under pressure, for to the south and 

 east, far away and invisible, the land was holding, while from the 

 northwest the wind was blowing upon a million pieces of ice stuck 

 on edge as upon a million square sails, till each piece strove like a 

 full-rigged ship to move before the wind. But none could move 

 except by crushing or pressing up on edge the cake that lay in its 

 way. The pressure in the aggregate was near to infinite. To the 

 square foot it was great enough to break the Karluk or a ship far 

 stronger — strong enough to break any ship built. It would have 

 crushed us had we not been protected by being in a pocket among 

 especially strong adjacent floes. 



Drifting in the pack is a tense game. In the beginning you 

 have a certain amount of discretion in choosing your berth. After 

 that it is luck upon which the life of your ship depends. And 

 luck may change at any time. 



A day or two after we were beset it began to freeze. In four 

 or five days young ice had formed in every little open space where 

 irregular strong floes did not fit exactly against each other. You 

 could walk about anywhere without much danger of breaking 

 through. The wind had been northwesterly, and for a time we 

 kept drifting eastward until we found ourselves in Camden Bay, 

 fifteen or twenty miles offshore. Then the wind changed and we 

 began a drift westward. 



By this time I had made up my mind that the Karluk was not 

 to move under her own power again, and that we were in for a 

 voyage such as that of the Jeannette or the Fram, drifting for years, 

 if we had the luck to remain unbroken, eventually coming out some- 

 where towards the Atlantic, either we or our wreckage. 



Among the things to be concerned about was that we had on 

 board several men who had no business to be there. James Murray 

 was one. He was about forty-six, a little older than the age 

 preferable for such work, although I have in the Arctic been asso- 

 ciated with men of even sixty who did their part and stood the 

 work better than many younger men. One of my main concerns 

 from the beginning had been oceanography, and Murray's depart- 

 ment interested me greatly. Impelled by the double desire of 

 keeping him safe and of gaining the greatest possible oceanographi- 

 cal information, I had decided to put him in command of the Mary 

 Sachs. Our oceanographical equipment was all on the Karluk, 

 and it was to have been the task of Murray and Mackay between 

 Nome and Herschel Island to separate it into two divisions. Some 



