i 9 o 4 ] SAWING OPERATIONS 233 



'January 2. — To-day I had all hands on the saws, and 

 then went out to see how matters were going.' 



Perhaps it would be well to pause here to describe the 

 nature of an ice-^saw. A typical saw such as we had is about 

 18 feet in length, 8 or 9 inches in depth, and \\ or 2 inches 

 in thickness; the teeth are naturally very coarse. It has a 

 wooden cross-handle at the top, and is worked by the aid of a 

 tripod in a very simple and primitive fashion. A rope is 

 attached close to the handle, and led through a block on the 

 tripod ; it then divides into numerous tails, to each of which a 

 man is stationed. When all these men pull down together the 

 saw is lifted, and as they release their ropes other men on the 

 handles press the saw forward, and it makes a downward cut. 

 From time to time as the saw-cut advances the tripod has to 

 be shifted. The arrangement will probably be well under- 

 stood when it is explained that the action of the men on 

 the ropes is very much that of bellringers, and it can be 

 imagined that four hours of this sort of thing is a very good 

 spell. 



I must now ask the reader to consider what the sawing of a 

 channel through a solid ice-sheet actually means. It will be 

 obvious of course that two cuts must be made, one on each 

 side of the channel ; but the rest is not so evident. It lies in 

 the problem of how to get rid of the ice which remains in the 

 channel. In order to do this cross-cuts must be made at 

 intervals ; but this is not sufficient, for it is impossible to make 

 the two side-cuts exactly parallel, so that by a cross-cut alone 

 an irregular parallelogram is left, which will be immovable 

 without being broken up. The simplest manner in which this 

 can be effected is to make a diagonal cut right through it. 

 The net result of the foregoing is to show that, in order to 

 make a channel a mile in length, it is necessary to cut through 

 four miles of ice. What added difficulties there were in our 

 case my diary shows : 



• I found that the result of twelve solid days' work was two 

 parallel cuts 150 yards in length, and as operations had been 

 commenced in the middle of the ice-sheet, instead of at the edge, 



