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the ice-choked Bering Strait, which leads into the Chukchi Sea. On 

 the left lay Siberia, on the right, islands and the Alaskan coast. Soon 

 their electronic equipment picked up ice ; they passed under a huge 

 block that extended thirty feet below the surface. This ice was 

 rafted, that is to say, layers jammed one on top of another as they 

 pressed against the land. The sea was dangerously shallow: only 

 forty-five feet of water beneath them to the ocean floor and about 

 twenty-five feet above them to the ice. This way was closed. 



Anderson next tried to find a way through on the eastern side 

 of the Bering Strait. This they did with no difficulty and entered 

 the Chukchi Sea, but at ii o'clock on the night of June 17 they 

 were faced with a crisis. Anderson was called from his cabin and 

 told that Nautilus had just passed^under ice sixty-three feet thick. 

 Quickly he ordered a swing to the left and a dive to within twenty 

 feet of the ocean floor. "Our sonar revealed that the gigantic block 

 under which we hovered was over a mile wide," Anderson wrote. 

 "Not in many years had I felt so uneasy in a submarine. Obviously, 

 it was urgent that we move away from that ice .... As we crept 

 into our turn, the recording pen [which was tracing the profile of 

 ice above] wavered downward. All of us — Rex Fowray, who was 

 operating the equipment; Bill Lalor, who was co-ordinating and 

 checking on the ship's course, speed, and depth, together with sonar 

 reports ; and myself- stared transfixed. Then slowly the pen receded. 

 We all breathed more easily. We had cleared the monstrous hunk 

 by twenty-five feet." 



No sooner had they recovered from that ordeal than their sonar 

 began to show even deadlier ice just ahead. The Nautilus crept 

 forward, and downward again came the ice. "I waited for, and 



engine room 



control 

 room 



batteries 



