THE JOURNEY OVER THE PACK ICE 243 



could produce these results ; but such an obstruction ought to 

 be rather close to us, and how can it be with the great depth of 

 six hundred and ninety metres and no bottom ? We have been 

 discussing this problem in the tent to-day, but we cannot make 

 it out. Besides talking about the supposed land we have been 

 making plans for the next year's work, and thinking what 

 we could do now that we know so much which we could 

 not possibly know before, and are able to take advantage of 

 the conditions. To-day we finished the pemmican ration after 

 managing to make the seven days' food last for eight days 

 without feeling very hungry. That is thirty ounces a day, and 

 we have now been living on that amount for sixteen days without 

 feeling any inconvenience. 



Wind W.S.W., twenty to twenty-five miles an hour. Tempera- 

 ture 15 C. Weather clear. 



Observed lat. 71 19' and long. 148 23'. 



Sunday, April 21. I am cook, and as I awoke almost an hour 

 too late, we were not off until 7 A.M. The wind had abated 

 during the night, and it was calm when we started. We worked 

 all day over heavy ice and made little progress between high 

 ridges and very much open water. The lanes were wide, and 

 we had often to make long detours in order to find a suitable 

 crossing. The dogs begin to get used to the water and manage 

 to come across fairly well ; only " Mack " is still unwilling and 

 has to be treated pretty roughly before he makes a jump, and 

 when he jumps he is so frightened that he always jumps short. 

 The ice which we have been travelling over is rather thin, only 

 a couple of feet thick, and seems to be of about the same age as 

 the ice we had off the Midway Islands. Only now and then we 

 travel over ice which is a year old, and we have not seen any 

 real " old ice." Storkersen broke through the ice to-day and fell 

 into the water, getting wet to his waist, but luckily the weather 

 was not very cold, so it did not do him -any real harm, and we 

 kept on travelling. We took another sounding to-day with the 

 same result as on the previous days, six hundred and twenty 

 metres and no bottom, and we are now within eleven miles of 

 the same latitude as on April i, when we had twenty-two 

 fathoms. The edge of the shelf is certainly steep, and it is 

 a pity that we ever left it. 



" Sachawachick " was sacrificed to-day; he was rather lazy 



R 2 



