628 THE FRIENDLY ARCTIC 



and with such force that it cannot be left out of this narrative 

 without a fundamental falsification of it. We have the choice of 

 placing the blame where it belongs or leaving the reader to lay 

 it on men to whom it does not belong. 



The depot left by Kellett the spring of 1853 at Dealy Island we 

 reached on June 28th in the evening. Its location is indicated 

 from afar by a monument on top of the highest part of the island 

 that it must have taken even a large ship's crew a long time to 

 build. Unfortunately I did not write a description of this beacon 

 at the time, and still more unfortunately we had had on the whole 

 trip no camera to take a picture with, for all our films had either 

 been used or spoiled. As I remember it, there must have been 

 originally a pyramid-shaped pile of boulders from fifteen to twenty 

 feet on a side at the base and ten to fifteen feet high. This rock 

 pile had been painted over to make it more conspicuous and many 

 of the men had written their names with paint, scratched them 

 in, or even chiseled them into the rock. Something had been wrong 

 with the structure, for there had been a sort of landslide of rocks 

 from one of the sides. From the center of the pile a pole rises 

 up like the single mast of a ship. Altogether, it is beyond com- 

 parison the most conspicuous monument in those parts of the 

 Arctic over which we have traveled. As I hunted overland I had 

 seen it the day before from a hilltop a distance of twenty miles. 



The depot itself was evidently made in summer and without 

 an appreciation of the disadvantages of the location. The site had 

 clearly been chosen because of the abundance of splintered rock 

 suitable for building, and a house had been constructed. We 

 measured it roughly, but I forgot to record the measurements and 

 must rely on the mere impression that it was about forty or fifty 

 feet long, fifteen or twenty feet wide, and the gables eight or nine 

 feet at the ridge. It had been roofed over with boards and canvas 

 and filled with stores which are described in the records as, "two 

 hundred and eighty-eight days' provisions for sixty-six men." 

 There were additional things, such as casks containing clothing, 

 equipment in the nature of spades, axes, etc., a cooking oven, and 

 several tons of coal. Of this last we used seventy-five or a hun- 

 dred pounds for fuel both there and later, for we took some along 

 when we left. It was a sort of powdered coal, pressed into bri- 

 quettes, and burned well even in our blubber stove which had no 

 provision for a strong draft. 



The disadvantage of the location is that the house stands under 

 a cliff a hundred and fifty or two hundred feet high. In the fall 



I 



