240 CONQUERING THE ARCTIC ICE 



they come to the top of a pressure-ridge, as if to look round. 

 Then there is renewed and increased work to get the sledge 

 started up the incline ; often, indeed, in most cases the driver 

 has to give up the attempt and call for assistance. It is 

 wonderful how Mr. Leffingwell and Storkersen can start a 

 sledge even in heavy ice ; they have a way of their own, and 

 they very often succeed where I have to set signals of distress. 

 Mr. Leffingwell is not far wrong when he says " I shall by- 

 and-by be able to start a railroad waggon " ; and it certainly 

 would take me a considerable amount of time to become as 

 good a driver as they are, though I have had the small sledge 

 on the whole trip. However, the small sledge is not so very 

 easy to pull. Going uphill I have to toil as hard as I possibly 

 can, and once on the top the sledge comes running full speed 

 after me, and I have to look out or I should be run over. 

 Then I have to start it again, and this performance may be 

 repeated within a couple of minutes. It is worst when going 

 over very small rubble ; the constant jerking at the hauling strap 

 is very unpleasant, and being ahead it is of course impossible to 

 guide the sledge between the ice, and it has a most exasperating 

 way of capsizing, whenever I think that it is at last going 

 very well indeed. To-day we had hit the high spots in crossing 

 the seven miles of old ice, and were consequently in the best of 

 spirits ; the whole thing is mere play over that kind of ground. 

 But the good going has an unpleasant way of coming to an end 

 only too quickly, and at n A.M. we were driving up and down 

 the edge of a very disagreeable stretch of ice to find a suitable 

 crossing. Then we all started to hew down the sharp points 

 of ice, plunging the larger blocks into holes or carrying them 

 away. We had almost finished when we heard a groaning 

 from the ridge, while a large piece of ice just alongside of us 

 began to slide, and in a second the whole ridge was in motion. 

 We had to leave it hurriedly and to get our sledges away from 

 the dangerous neighbourhood of the pieces of ice which came 

 crashing down on our floe. The iceblocks were about six feet 

 thick, and it was an awe-inspiring sight to see how those 

 immense weights were moved about. Here a big block of ice, 

 about ten feet long and six or seven feet wide, was rolled over, 

 pushed along, and piled up on the top of the ridge. For a moment 

 it lay still ; then a motion in the ice underneath it set it sliding, first 





