THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 171 



In outfitting our expedition we had sought advice from many 

 authorities in oceanography as to the desirable sort of sounding 

 wire, and this advice ranged all the way from the people who lay 

 ocean cables and favor single strand piano wire, to that of Dr. 

 W. S. Bruce of the Scottish Oceanographical Laboratory, who ad- 

 vised 9-strand braided copper wire. I had followed the advice of 

 Dr. Bruce and provided the expedition with a large amount of 

 9-strand wire, and I had also taken the advice of the cable com- 

 panies and bought a considerable amount of piano wire. But most 

 of the soundings were to have been done by the Karluk and the ex- 

 ploratory parties outfitted from her, so she had carried all the 

 braided wire and this was now lost. As fortune would have it, Mr. 

 Leffingwell at Flaxman Island had been able to give me 911 meters 

 of braided wire. At Collinson Point we had got piano wire which 

 proved so worthless that whenever we sounded with it we lost the 

 lead and a piece of the wire. The bottom of the deep sea is covered 

 with a sticky ooze into which the lead sinks, so that a considerable 

 strain must be put upon the wire to release it after sounding. We 

 had carried six sounding leads at the start, but by April 15th we had 

 only two leads left, one of six pounds and another of twelve, and 

 had lost several miles of piano wire. We are therefore able to add 

 our testimony to the experience of Dr. Bruce that any one who 

 expects to sound repeatedly with the same wire will do well to use 

 the strongest. We used for five years and for several hundred sound- 

 ings the braided wire secured from Mr. Lefiingwell without once los- 

 ing a lead or sustaining an accident. 



Whether we were destined to find seals in the deep water off- 

 shore with the weight of all polar authority against it and the opin- 

 ion of the Alaska whalers and the coast Eskimos equally against it, 

 had always been the question in Alaska. Now it was natural that 

 we should watch closely for signs of seals. Here it stood us in good 

 stead that we had for years been in the habit of doing our own hunt- 

 ing. A man inexperienced in woodcraft may walk through a forest 

 without seeing any signs of the presence of moose, though these 

 signs will be patent to the hunter or guide who knows the woods and 

 the ways of animals. So a man who does not realize the presence of 

 seals unless he sees their heads bobbing about in the water of an 

 open lead, might make a long journey over the polar ice and still 

 retain his original conviction that food animals are absent. But 

 there may be on the sea ice inconspicuous signs of seals as clear in 

 their meaning when once noted as bear tracks in the snow. 



Ice formed this year is easily distinguished from ice that is two 



