FIELD WOKK OF THE PEAKY ARCTIC CLUB, 1898-1902. 445 



From this camp we crossed the second glacier, then a small fiord, 

 where our eyes were gladdened In' the sight of a polar ])ear, which a 

 couple of bullets from my carbine quickly transformed into dog meat 

 for my faithful teams. The skin of this bear I have brought l)ack as 

 a troph}' for the club. 



It was evident to me now that we were very near the northern 

 extremity of the land, and when we came within view of the next point 

 ahead, I felt that my eyes rested at last upon the Arctic Ultima Thule 

 (Cape Morris Jesup). The land ahead also impressed me at once as 

 showing the characteristics of a musk-ox country. 



This point was reached in the next march, and I stopped to take 

 variation and latitude sights. Here my Eskimo shot a hare, and we 

 saw a wolf track and traces of musk oxen. A careful reconnoissance 

 of the pack to the northward, with glasses, from an elevation of a 

 few hundred feet, showed the ice to be of a less impracticable charac- 

 ter than it was north of Cape Washington. What were evidently 

 water clouds showed ver}^ distinctl}' on the 4iorizon. This water sk}^ 

 had been apparent ever since we left Cape Washington, and at one 

 time assumed such a shape that I was almost deceived into taking it 

 for land. Continued careful observation destroyed the illusion. My 

 obversations completed, we started northward over the pack, and 

 camped a few miles from land. 



The two following marches were made in a thick fog, through which 

 we groped our way northward over broken ice and across gigantic, 

 wave-like drifts of hard snow. One more march in clear weather 

 over frightful going, consisting of fragments of old Hoes, ridges of 

 heav}^ ice thrown up to heights of 25 to 50 feet, crevasses and holes 

 masked by snow, the whole intersected by narrow leads of open water, 

 l)rought us at 5 a. m., on the 16th, to the northern edge of a fragment 

 of an old floe bounded by water. A reconnoissance from the summit 

 of a pinnacle of the floe, some 50 feet high, showed that we were on 

 the edge of the disintegrated pack, with a dense water skv not far 

 distant. 



My hours for sleep at this camp were occupied in observations, and 

 making a transit profile of the northern coast from Cape Washington 

 eastward. 



The next day I started back for the land, and having a trail to 

 follow, and no time wasted in reconnoissance, reached it in one long- 

 march, and camped. 



Leaving this camp on the 18th, as we were traveling eastward on 

 the ice foot an hour later, I saw a herd of 6 musk oxen in one of t}i(> 

 coast valleys, and in a short time had secured them. Skinning and 

 cutting up these animals and feeding the dogs to repletion consumed 

 some hours, and we then I'esumed our march, getting an unsuccessful 

 shot at a passing wolf as we went. 



