ARCTIC ICE AND ITS NAVIGATION. 677 



AECTIC ICE AND ITS NAVIGATION. 



By ALBEET A. ACKEEMAN, 



ENSIGN, UNITED STATES NAVY. 



FEW people can understand the fascination of summer life in 

 the arctic regions for those who have once gone through the 

 experience without disaster. 



It is an awe-inspiring land. The massive, dreamy beauty of 

 the slumbering icebergs, the sharp outlines and sheer height of 

 the basalt coast cliffs, the mysterious expanse of the glacier, and 

 the ceaseless motion of the ice-floes grinding and clashing to- 

 gether, produce upon all men emotions of awe and delight. 



Elsewhere, Nature moves as well with power and grandeur, 

 but more slowly and with much less amplitude of action ; there, 

 the changes that in a temperate climate require months take 

 place tumultuously in a few days. 



The breaking up and floating away of the ice-field, the debdcle 

 of the glaciers and disgorging of the fiords, impress man with his 

 utter insignificance and weakness in the presence of such mighty 

 forces. Fleets of lofty icebergs drift southward, urged on by 

 deep under-currents, and plow their way through thinner ice, 

 splitting, colliding, and overturning, always maintaining a cer- 

 tain sphinx-like dignity — majestic and mysterious. Vast out- 

 reaching tongues of ice extend from their hidden bases, as hard 

 as rock and as dangerous to the unwary navigator, while to lee- 

 ward drifts a convoy of smaller bergs, the debris of the first — a 

 jostling following too rough for safe companionship. Over all 

 this glistening mass of marble white hover myriads of white gulls, 

 and in the blue translucent caverns at the water's edge reverber- 

 ate the swash of the sea and the music of cascades. 



Amid such surroundings men can test themselves, where the 

 brave have confessed fear and the hardy and strong confessed 

 weakness ; and so long as men are brave and strong, so will there 

 be volunteers for expeditions, the northern limit of which depends 

 alone upon the extent to which fortune favors their strength and 

 judgment. Arctic exploration is not dependent, however, upon 

 the vanity of adventurers ; the world throngs with eager students 

 of Nature, and from these must spring the motive which alone can 

 lead to success. Rarely does it happen that robust health and 

 love of adventure accompany the knowledge of generalization 

 only acquired by years of study, and so essential in localities 

 where there is little that is familiar and unworthy of record ; to 

 this, and not only to the disasters from which hardly an expedi- 

 tion has escaped, is due the fact that, notwithstanding the treas- 



