422 KANSAS CITY REVIEW OF SCIENCE. 



We had really begun to speculate about running our little steam launch right 

 through from Lady Franklin Bay to the North Pole, 



Very soon, however, we ceased to think of such an exploit, by reason of the 

 stern reality with which we were brought face to face. We were suddenly con- 

 fronted with an impassable ice pack. Since we were within only eight miles of 

 this place, on the north shore of the bay, which was our destination, our disap- 

 pointment can be imagined. It was of course, useless to lament. We had to 

 make the best of it. The pack extended across Robeson channel from shore to 

 shore, and, we thought likely, all the way to the North Pole. It would have 

 been as useless to try to move the world as to force our way through it. At the 

 ship's side the ice was from eighteen to twenty feet thick. Looking across it, it 

 showed one series of hummocks. I traveled about three miles to the north on the 

 pack, and found it not very easy work. All we could do was to wait and take 

 our chances. We lay in one place two days before the 9th, in which time about 

 half a mile of ice broke away, after which we possibly worked ahead, by starting 

 another point, a rnile or so. Then the thickness of the pack increased, and it 

 became more and more rough, hard and hummocky. We v/ere, however, in 

 constant hope that enough would break away to enable us to make our camping 

 place and unload the ship before the whole pack moved, though there was grave 

 danger that the pack would start all at once. In that event we expected to have 

 to run before it, and there was no telling then how far south it would drive us. 

 Of course we did not anticipate with pleasure the possibility of being carried back 

 after getting within sight of, and only eight miles distant from, our objective 

 point. We feared that if driven out by the pack we could not get back this sea- 

 son, because it was to be expected that in two or three weeks' time new ice 

 • would form of such thickness that the ship could never cut through it, and the 

 pack ice was not likely to run out in that time. Even at that early day new ice 

 formed every night. I cannot describe how tantalizing the impenetrable barrier 

 was to us, and how powerless we were to do anything. 



We hoped for the best, however, and, as it turned out, not in vain. We 

 gradually had to retreat before the pack, dodging floes here and there as we went, 

 until we were fully forty miles south of the place wh'ere we first encountered it. 

 Then a southwest gale sprang up, which at last drove the ice toward the eastern 

 shore, and left a free passage for us to run in here. Our house is under way, 

 and everything is unloaded from the vessel except the coal — 140 tons. When 

 this is done, which will be soon, the ship will leave us, and we must say our part- 

 ing words for one long year. The ship cannot stay a moment after she is un 

 loaded, as she would, by so doing, run the risk of being caught in the ice for the 

 winter. This letter will probably reach you sooner than those which I sent you 

 from Disco and Upernavik, since they have to go to Denmark by sailing vessel. 



And now about the trip before we reached Lady Franklin Bay. We had 

 some stormy weather on the voyage, and there were only four of us who were 

 not seasick — Lieut. Lockwood, three sergeants and myself. The long day seem- 

 ed a little strange to me at first, but now I am fully accustomed to it. The sun 



