756 THE WORLD'S WONDERS. 



boats on sleds, packing provisions, and making sleeping bags. 

 On June 17th the entire party moved southward, with the hope 

 of reaching the New Siberian islands, and from there to make 

 their way by boats to the coast of Siberia. They had five sledges 

 and three boats two cutters and a whale-boat which carried 

 6,896 pounds of provisions, besides ammunition, fire-arms, cloth- 

 ing, and other needful sundries. A dreadful march now began, 

 during which hope and despair alternated from day to day, if 

 not, indeed, from hour to hour. DeLong had only twenty-two 

 dogs, so that every man had to lend his strength to dragging the 

 heavily-weighted sledgos. Sometimes one sledge would be left far 

 behind, blocked by some obstruction, which would require a re- 

 turn of the advance party to relieve it, so that it was marching 

 and doubling back, making the advance both tedious and ex- 

 hausting. 



The difficulties of traveling now increased, as openings in the 

 ice became more frequent at the numerous fissures, which were 

 of variable widths, though never broad enough to warrant the 

 rigging up of the boats ; the party had to stop and bridge the 

 water space with broken pieces of ice, which was a work of infin- 

 ite trouble and consumed more than half their time. In addi- 

 tion to this, as July advanced the increase in temperature began 

 to let loose immense floes that form, for some unaccountable 

 reason, at the bottom of the sea ; these rise with such force that 

 they break the heavy surface ice and pile it up in huge hummocks, 

 which are often thirty feet high and cover large fields, so that 

 passing over them is like climbing rough, rocky precipices. This 

 traveling was dreadfully exhaustive, and required the men to go 

 over.thesame ground four times each way, as the full force was 

 needed to move a single sledge. Lieut. Danenhowe::, executive 

 officer, and Lieut. Chipp, second in command, had been sick since 

 1880, or almost from the beginning of the expedition, and this 

 manner of traveling so aggravated their illness that they were 

 several Jimes upon the point of succumbing. Danenhower suf- 

 fered principally from an affection of his eyes, and it was so 

 painful as to prove a severe drain upon his system. Chipp was 



