ARCTIC FLYING EXPERIENCES 417 



only 300 feet before we could see what lay underneath. We were 

 over drift ice again. Where were we? To our surprise our wireless 

 seemed to recover at this moment and picked up a strong signal 

 which we thought might be Nome, but we could not tell for certain, 

 because it was a communication with another station and we could 

 not get the signature. But it gave us a position north of Diomede 

 Island and enabled us to set a course for Cape Prince of Wales. Very 

 soon we were over open water, which aroused our suspicions, for we 

 might just as well have been on the southern side of Bering Strait, 

 which, with our course, would have led us toward the Aleutian Islands. 

 Getting into sunshine again we were obliged to take our observations 

 from the top of the ship as the sun at this latitude was so high that it 

 was hidden by the envelope in whichever direction the ship pointed. 

 The observation gave our latitude as 67° 30'. We then went down 

 through the clouds and found ourselves over land, having passed over 

 the whole of Kotzebue Sound, driven by a northerly gale of more than 

 70 miles per hour. Heading west to get to the sea, again we heard the 

 Nome wireless, which, together with the identification of the coast 

 line, gave us our exact position. At 3.30 on the morning of May 14 

 we rounded Cape Prince of Wales and, tired but happy, brought our 

 airship, coated with a ton of ice, safely to rest at the little trading 

 post of Teller, 91 miles northwest of Nome, after a journey of 3393 

 miles, lasting 72 hours, across the Arctic Sea from Europe to America. 



