IN THE MELVILLE BAY PACK 2$ 



Wednesday, July i 5. Mr. Peary passed a fairly comfortable 

 night, and had a good sleep without morphine to-day, conse- 

 quently he feels better. As for 'myself, I could not keep up 

 any longer, and at 1 1 A. M., after Dr. Cook had dressed the 

 leg and made an additional splint, I lay down, and neither 

 moved nor heard a sound until after five o'clock. This was 

 the first sleep I have had since Friday night. Dr. Cook, who 

 has been more than attentive, has made a pair of crutches for 

 the poor sufferer, but he will not be able to use them for a 

 month. 



We find to-day that our latitude is 75° i', and our longi- 

 tude 60^ 9' ; consequently our headway has been very slow. 

 It seems as if when the ice is loose the fog is too thick for us 

 to travel in safety, and when the fog lifts the ice closes in 

 around us. Once to-day the ice suddenly opened and a crack 

 which visibly widened allowed us to make nearly four miles 

 in one stretch. Throughout much of the night and day we 

 steamed back and forth and hither and thither, trying to get 

 through or around the ice, and to prevent the " Kite " from 

 getting nipped between two floes. A little after supper the 

 fog suddenly closed in upon us, and before we could com- 

 plete the passage of a narrow and tortuous lead, through 

 which we were seeking escape from the advancing floes in our 

 rear, we were caught fast between two large pans. The ice 

 was only about fourteen inches thick, and there was but little 

 danger of the " Kite " being crushed ; still, Captain Pike, with 

 the memories of former disasters fresh in his mind, did not 



