176 PLEASANT WAYS IN SCIENCE. 



Nares says that "half of each day was spent in dragging 

 the sledges in that painful fashion face toward the boat 

 in which the sailors drag a boat from the sea on to the 

 sand ; " and again he speaks of the " toilsome dragging of 

 the sledges over ice-ridges which resembled a stormy sea 

 suddenly frozen." In doing this " 276 miles were toiled 

 over in travelling only 73 miles." Is it altogether clear 

 that the sledges were worth the trouble ? One usually re- 

 gards a sledge as intended to carry travellers and their 

 provisions, etc., over ice and snow, and as useful when so 

 employed ; but when the travellers have to take along the 

 sledge, going four times as far and working ten times as 

 hard as if they were without it, the question suggests itself 

 whether all necessary shelter, provisions, and utensils might 

 not have been much more readily conveyed by using a 

 much smaller and lighter sledge, and by distributing a large 

 part of the luggage among the members of the expedition. 

 The parts of a small hut could, with a little ingenuity, be 

 so constructed as to admit of being used as levers, crowbars, 

 carrying-poles, and so forth, and a large portion of the 

 luggage absolutely necessary for the expedition could be 

 carried by their help ; while a small, light sledge for the 

 rest could be helped along and occasionally lifted bodily 

 over obstructions by levers and beams forming part of the 

 very material which by the usual arrangement forms part 

 of the load. I am not suggesting, be it noticed, that by 

 any devices of this sort a journey over the rough ice of 

 Arctic regions could be made easy. But it does seem to me 

 that if a party could go back and forth over 276 miles, 

 pickaxing a way for a sledge, and eventually dragging it 

 along over the path thus pioneered for it, and making only 

 an average of ij mile of real progress per day, or 73 miles 

 in all, the same men could with less labour (though still, 

 doubtless, with great toil and trouble) make six or seven 

 miles a day by reducing their impedimenta to what could 

 be carried directly along with them. Whether use might not 

 be made of the lifting power of buoyant gas, is a question 



