THE JOURNEY OVER THE PACK ICE 245 



The weather was fine and clear to-day ; only a light W.S.W. 

 wind was blowing. Temperature 17 C. Lat. 71 12' N., 

 long. 148 15' W. 



Tuesday, April 23. As we wanted to take some soundings 

 from our camp towards the shore, we stayed in camp, and after 

 breakfast we commenced taking soundings over the steep 

 edge between sixty-two metres and two hundred and twenty 

 metres. Unluckily, we lost our 12 Ib. lead, as the wire 

 snapped, but we still had one of 6 Ibs. We had expected the 

 drift to change our soundings, but we repeated the sixty-two 

 and the two hundred and twenty metres and found exactly the 

 same depth. We went towards the shore, but were stopped a mile 

 south of the camp by a wide open lane. We followed it for 

 about two miles, but were not able to find a crossing, so we 

 gave it up. The depth was fifty metres. We did not finish 

 till 3 P.M., and as it was rather late we stopped in camp for the 

 rest of the day. 



" Kamalook " is ill, and I am afraid that he is suffering from 

 the disease from which our other dogs have died. 



It is blowing up from the east, the sky does not look promis- 

 ing, and I fear that a gale is coming on. 



Wednesday, April 24. The weather was fairly good, although 

 it was blowing somewhat from E.S.E. at six to eight miles an 

 hour, and we broke camp at 6 A.M. A sounding through the hole 

 where we had had sixty-two metres for the last two days gave 

 us now one hundred and seventy-one metres, and we were 

 drifting W.N.W. or N.W. at a fairly good speed. For almost 

 half an hour we were delayed close to the camp on account of 

 a pressure in the ice. The floes moved past each other at the 

 rate of about i foot in ten seconds. The ice was not more than 

 3 feet thick, but even with that thickness an awful booming and 

 grinding accompanied the pressure. We profited by a momen- 

 tary slackening of the pressure to get over, and had fairly good 

 going on the other side, as we are now travelling parallel, or 

 almost parallel, to the snowdrifts, and can use them to their 

 full extent instead of crossing them at an angle. Later on we 

 came into a network of lanes and had to look round carefully 

 to get our sledges over without accidents, often having to use 

 small pieces of ice as bridges, shooting the sledges from one to 

 another and making the dogs jump. At other times we had to 



