296 THE ANTARCTIC MANUAL. 
Our dry provisions and clothing are so packed upon the sledges 
as to be protected from the wet, but everyone is of course drenched, 
and remains so during the march through this ice-cold water. This 
is cold-water cure in real earnest, but I would not recommend any 
one with the slightest suspicion of a rheumatic tendency to try it! 
Later still the water drains off the sea-ice through cracks or holes 
decayed in it, and only tortuous pools of water remain upon it. 
Later than this, sledge-travelling, without the accompaniment of 
a boat, becomes unsafe. 
Such is the nature of the travelling when the sea-ice has not been 
crushed up into hummocks, or masses of various sizes and shapes. 
We seldom find either unbroken ice, or ice so crushed up into 
ridges that we cannot get over it at all; but, as a rule, crushed up or 
hummocky ice, three or four feet in height, is of very frequent occur- 
rence, and, of course, adds much to the labour of sledging. 
Having accompanied Sir James Ross on his sledge-journey in 
1849, I was entrusted with the preparations for sledge-travelling 
in the second and third searching expeditions, under Austin and 
Belcher; and this method of exploration now became recognised as 
an important feature of these voyages. 
The utmost attention was devoted to the travelling equipments, 
and to the methods adopted by Wrangell and other distinguished 
Arctic travellers; and the spring parties of the second expedition 
set out in i851 on the 15th April, instead of the 15th of May, as in 
1849 ; and the sledges, carrying forty days’ provisions, were dragged 
with less labour than thirty days’ rations had previously occasioned: 
moreover, the allowance was a much more liberal one. The result 
was a corresponding increase of work done: one party remaining 
absent for eighty days, and making a journey of 900 miles. 
But in 1853 and 1854 the sledge parties of the third searching 
expedition did still better service: one party accomplished about 
1400 miles in 105 days. Another party, having several depdts along 
its line of route, and favourable circumstances generally, travelled 
nearly 1350 miles in seventy days. 
The two journeys, which have not yet been surpassed, are deserv- 
ing of our special notice. 
The first was purely an exploring journey. Melville Island, which 
is some fifty miles broad, and is of moderate elevation, had to be 
crossed and recrossed. At the outset, very heavy loads had to be 
dragged; and ignorance of the direction in which the unknown coast- 
line might trend, interfered with the deposit of provisions to serve 
for the return journey ; nevertheless, the daily average march was 
