604 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



frost. If only two layers of clothing are worn, it may be that the 

 dew point is reached outside of the second layer and that all the 

 hoar frost will gather on the outside of the outer garments, where 

 most of it can be brushed off. But if this be so at twenty below 

 zero, for instance, it will not be so twenty or thirty degrees lower, 

 and the condensation which may in the forenoon be forming on 

 the outer side of the outer garment may in the afternoon, if the 

 temperature has dropped, begin to form between the two layers. 

 Then in the comparative warmth of even such a cold camp as 

 Nansen's, where the temperature was twenty or thirty degrees be- 

 low zero, some of this hoar frost will melt, for the point of con- 

 densation will be farther from the skin than it was out of doors. 

 Nansen would have become damp sitting in his tent even without 

 getting into his sleeping-bag. But in the sleeping-bag the hoar frost 

 turned into liquid and he practically slept in an ice-water bath all 

 night. 



But although condensation in one's clothing cannot be pre- 

 vented it can be easily dealt with. There are many ways of doing 

 it, of which we think this is the best: 



Preferably I begin with a complete suit of underwear, including 

 socks, of young caribou, with the hair next the skin. Outside of 

 the fur undersocks I wear two or three pairs of blanket slippers, 

 and outside of them a loose boot with canvas upper and sealskin 

 sole very much of the type first designed, so far as I know, by 

 McClintock. I have tried the elaborate felt and other boots used 

 by the recent British antarctic expeditions and have found none 

 of them so suitable as the McClintock boot, which is for extreme 

 cold weather one of the few improvements known to me on Eskimo 

 clothing. My reason for wearing several layers of dufiie slippers 

 is one of ease of making and mending. The same results could be 

 obtained with several thicknesses of skin slippers as worn by the 

 Copper Eskimos (of the mainland and islands around Coronation 

 Gulf). 



Outside my fur drawers I have worn ordinary cheap trousers 

 and outside of them several pairs of loose trousers, similar in cut 

 to those worn by Chinamen. These have been made of light drill- 

 ing. If the weather gets warm I take off one, two, or three of these 

 and spread them on the sled. If the wind blows or the temperature 

 drops I put them on again one by one till I have enough. On the 

 upper part of the body I wear a fur shirt with the hair in, and 

 a somewhat heavier fur coat with the hair out. Outside of this 

 is a coat of linen-duster effect except that it is cut in the Eskimo 



