242 CONQUERING THE ARCTIC ICE 



I wear goggles continually, and my eyes hurt me a good 

 deal. 



Observations to-day were to the surprising effect that we 

 were six miles further west than we had expected. This 

 again means that the ice is drifting westward rather fast, even 

 against a fairly strong westerly wind, and a drift of six miles in 

 two days against the wind bodes no good for our progress when 

 the easterly winds set in again. 



We made ten miles in S.E. direction. (Obs.) Lat. 71 19', 

 Long. 148 35' W. Temperature at start - 18 C., at noon 

 16 C. Wind W.S.W., about eight to ten miles an hour. 



Saturday, April 20. A day in the bags, but not a day lost. 

 It blew hard towards morning, and we decided to stay in camp 

 in order to see the drift of the ice. From about 3 A.M. it 

 blew twenty to twenty-five miles an hour, from W.S.W., and 

 observations of the latitude at noon and of the longitude at 

 5 P.M. gave practically the same results as yesterday's observa- 

 tions ; only a few minutes difference in longitude, and that 

 difference probably owing to errors of observation. It is strange, 

 that with an easterly and light westerly wind we should drift 

 westward at a speed of about five to ten miles a day ; the floes 

 open up and we have water all round us, while a westerly wind 

 blowing even as much as ten to fifteen miles an hour is not able 

 to stop the drift. Only to-day, when it has been blowing 

 considerably harder, the drift has stopped, but we have not 

 been set back eastward. The snow is drifting too hard to see 

 whether there is any open water-sky, but, judging by the groans 

 from far and near and by the louder booming caused by the 

 formation of new cracks, it is evident that the ice is pressing 

 rather hard. 



How can it be explained that the ice does not drift back 

 eastward, as the free space formed by the drift to the west 

 cannot be filled by the supply that the long straits between the 

 Canadian Islands can give, neither can the water freeze over so 

 fast and so strongly as to resist the pressure of the pack from 

 the west ? Heavy floes split with the pressure on it, and young 

 ice certainly could not last. Now, a solid longitudinal obstruc- 

 tion, with a strait between its southern cape and the mainland 

 of America, wide enough to allow the easterly wind to drift the 

 ice in and fill the space made vacant by the drift to the west, 



