222 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



absence been removed, on the theory that they were an additional 

 and useless weight. In outfitting for my ice journey I had had the 

 toboggan bottom replaced on one sled, but this happened to be the 

 one Wilkins had with him when he got accidentally separated from 

 us. The one we now had was of the ordinary, unimproved Nome 

 type. Not unnaturally my diary entries of those days included more 

 or less wailing over the fact that it did not have a toboggan bottom. 

 My companions were so thorough^ persuaded by our experiences 

 that this was the last ice trip of the expedition where any one 

 wanted to use a sled without a toboggan bottom. 



By the 15th of June the depth of water had decreased to 350 

 meters and land birds began to appear, snow buntings and jaeger 

 gulls and a few days later king eiders and old squaw ducks. 



On June 22nd the soundings had come down to about 50 meters. 

 From a low hummock at this sounding place I looked across about 

 half a mile of level ice to a very high pressure-ridge, and between 

 the crags saw beyond something dark and uniform in outline which 

 I felt sure was land free from snow. 



Storkerson and Ole were standing beside the dog team, and I 

 called to them to come to the top of the hummock. But they had 

 learned skepticism through frequently taking for land either hum- 

 mocks of dirty ice or distant banks of thick, billowy fog. Ole ad- 

 mitted that he saw "something black that might be land," but 

 Storkerson, perhaps to guard himself from disappointment, main- 

 tained that nothing could be seen which we had not frequently seen 

 before and found to mean nothing. To settle it we hurried the half 

 mile to the high ridge between whose crags the dark outline had 

 been revealed, but one of our sudden arctic fogs had intervened 

 to the eastward and from the ice pirmacle everything in that direc- 

 tion now looked white. 



Just beyond this ridge was a lead of open water which we crossed 

 by an ice cake lying transversely across. We were tired and made 

 camp, but before going to sleep I took a sounding showing 39 

 meters and land birds began to appear, snow buntings and jaeger 



Next morning, June 23rd, I was up early and able to write in 

 my diary: "The land is no longer problematic. It is in plain sight 

 in the form of three hills, the more northerly two of which are 

 probably connected, as the southernmost may be also. The north 

 end bears North 17° West and the south hill North 5° East. The 

 distance to the land is not less than ten miles and may be a good 

 deal more." 



To those who have given little thought to the peculiarities of the 



