CHAPTER XVI 



A SPRING JOURNEY IN AN ESKIMO SKIN BOAT 



At Flaxman Island I found a well-stocked library and the 

 leisure to write and to think. After an active winter un- 

 der strange circumstances, the change was welcome. The 

 shelves were full of scientific books. I read Osier's 

 ''Practice of Medicine," fascinating as a novel, and Cham- 

 berlain and Salisbury's three-volume geology, which has 

 for its theme the greatest romance of all the romances — 

 the ancestry, birth and development of our world. Then 

 there were books labeled romances, such as the marvel 

 stories of H. G. Wells. There were whole shelves of Tol- 

 stoi and of the English classics. Between reading these 

 I wrote long dissertations on what I had seen and heard 

 during the winter and on what I thought about it all. 



But under the stimulation of an arctic climate inactivity 

 soon palls upon one who has tasted the wine of action. 

 I had not been at Flaxman Island more than a week when 

 I proposed to Dr. Howe, who was in command for the 

 time being, that he outfit me for a trip back to Herschel 

 Island. He did this and I made the journey, but as it 

 was uneventful I shall tell nothing about it. 



During my absence at Herschel Island the men whom 

 the Eskimos had reported dead came home all safe from 

 the ice. They had made a fine exploration a hundred 

 miles north from Alaska. The theory upon which they 

 started was that the ocean would be shallow and islands 

 would, therefore-, probably be found rising here and there 



i • >* > 



