THE VOYAGE OVER THE PACK ICE 207 



could to see what the trouble was. I came to the place where 

 I had crawled down on the young ice and saw a crack opening 

 up fast, which I had to jump, a leap .of five to seven feet. My 

 comrades were ready to catch me, and I got over all right, but 

 not any too soon, for the ice opened rapidly, and before many 

 minutes had passed there was a lane of twenty feet at the 

 narrowest place and fifty at the widest. Crossing it was out 

 of the question, and we had to camp at about 4 P.M. "Sore- 

 back " was shot to-day and cut up into suitable pieces for the 

 other dogs to eat. " Jack" was the only one who was willing 

 to eat his new food ; the others refused, but we feel sure 

 that they will eat it to-morrow, as they will have to go hungry 

 until they do. Poor dogs, they looked at us with such expectant 

 eyes, following us about whenever we came near the sledges, 

 and hoping that we would relent and give them something 

 better to eat, but as nothing came they began skirmishing 

 among themselves, and we heard fight after fight during the 

 night. We divided the load on my sledge between the sledges 

 of Mr. Leffingwell and Storkersen, and I kept only the ice gear, 

 the sounding machine, my spare clothing and sleeping bag, a 

 total of about go Ibs. This I dragged alone, dispensing with 

 my dogs, of which Mr. Leffingwell got one and Storkersen the 

 other. 



Made good progress about five miles due north. Tempera- 

 ture - 33; lat. 70 54' N. ; depth 18 fathoms. 



Saturday, March 30. I was cook at this time, and this morn- 

 ing, while cooking breakfast, I was so unfortunate as to upset 

 a pot of boiling water over my sleeping bag. We had to melt 

 some more water, and that took so long that we did not get off 

 before 7.40 A.M. We commenced the day by breaking our way 

 through a high pressure-ridge which had been formed where 

 we had water yesterday. After that we travelled over older 

 floe ice and had some fairly good going, although we very often 

 had to use the pickaxes. At 10.30 we came to a lane of thin 

 ice, and were looking for a place to cross over when it suddenly 

 broke up and the floes on either side began to move in opposite 

 directions. For an hour and a half we stood looking at the 

 commotion in the ice, which was pressing as far as we could see 

 to the east and west. It was a magnificent sight to witness 

 the result of the immense forces at work in the ice. First the 



