ARCTIC SLEDGE JOURNEYS. 353 



boat operations combined ; and for this purpose the best boats 

 and sledges that can be devised, have been supplied." * 



The results of Commander Markham's sledge journey 

 subsequently proved the wisdom and correctness of 

 these instructions. With infinite labour, and at very 

 great risk, that officer succeeded in pushing forward 

 to within just 400 miles of the Pole, but he was then 

 from these very causes forced to retire, after pene- 

 trating but a comparatively short distance further than 

 previous attempts had succeeded in doing, and planting 

 the British ensign in the midst of eternal snows, at a 

 somewhat higher latitude than had up to that time 

 been reached. 



Sledging journeys are practically restricted to the 

 spring and summer time only. The darkness of the 

 long winter's night of course precludes the possibility 

 of travelling over such a description of country at that 

 season ; and the soft state of the newly fallen snows 

 renders travelling impracticable in autumn and early 

 winter: at that time men sink so deeply into them that 

 extensive snow fields become almost impassable. Snow 

 in these far northern regions falls in an extremely fine 

 dustlike flour, and not in the large flakes which 

 are usual in England; in this exceedingly fine state it 

 is of course blown about by the least puff of wind, f 

 and so forms blinding clouds of snowdrift, which render 

 it impossible for travellers to guide their course with- 

 out constant reference to the compass ; in a few moments 



* Extract from Admiralty Sailing Orders, addressed to Captain Sir 

 George Nares, R.N., given on page Xiv of preface to his Narrative 

 of a Voyage to The Polar Sea, 1878, Vol. i. 



f- Voyage of the Vega, by A. E. Nordenskiold, translated by Alexander 

 Leslie, 1881, Vol. i, p. 473. 



VOL. II. 23 



