230 CONQUERING THE ARCTIC ICE 



good progress and should have been considerably further south. 

 We made about six miles due S.E. and should be on 

 lat. 71 42' N. and on long. 149 3' W. according to our dead 

 reckoning, but observation puts us on lat. 71 53', which is 

 anything but pleasant, if there is no mistake. 



Temperature at start 13 C., at noon 11 C. Weather 

 overcast and wind N.E., fifteen miles an hour. 



Monday, April 15. We began to prepare breakfast at 

 5 A.M., for although we could see from the tent that there 

 was open water, we yet hoped to find a crossing. The weather 

 was fine to-day, the sun was shining brightly, and the blue 

 water looked splendid and would have been perfectly enjoyable 

 but for the fact that it stopped our progress. We walked out, 

 Mr. Leffingwell to the north and I to the south and west, to 

 try to find a crossing, but we returned a couple of hours later 

 with the discouraging news that we could not cross the lane 

 and that it would be of no use to keep travelling along it ; north- 

 ward and southward it trended to the west, and was in places 

 a quarter of a mile wide. A bear had been quite close to the 

 tent during the night, within a couple of hundred yards, and 

 we could see where it had sat on its haunches looking at our 

 outfit, the tent, the sledges, the dogs, and, I suppose, wondering 

 whether it was something good to eat. However, he must 

 have thought better of it, as he circled about at a respectful 

 distance and his tracks disappeared in a westerly direction. 

 Seals were playing in the water and we waited for them, 

 but they never came within sure range, and we did not like to 

 waste our ammunition. 



Another disagreeable surprise was in store for us. We had 

 taken a longitude and figured it out with assumed latitudes. 

 It gave us 150 04' W. Of course we did not doubt that it 

 must be wrong, and took another about two hours later. 

 Imagine our surprise when it turned out to be within 3' of the 

 first. That it must be a mistake was now out of the question, 

 and we had to admit the sad fact that we, since the I2th, had 

 come about twenty miles W.N.W. (true) instead of thirteen 

 miles S.E. a difference between observation and dead 

 reckoning of about thirty-three miles in two days ! Latitude 

 taken at noon gave 71 47', and a more disconsolate crew 

 than we then were would be hard to find. 



