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ARCTIC RESEARCH EXPEDITION. 



THE RETURN FROM NEWTON'S FIORD. 



During the afternoon the sun shone down through the storm 

 that seemed only hugging the earth. For the last nine miles 

 which I made along by the west side of the fiord and Peter Force 

 Sound, the mountains would every few moments show a shaded 

 contour — a ghost-like faintness — by which I was enabled to make 

 my course without the compass. When within two miles of the 

 igloos I came upon our sledge-tracks of the day before, and these 

 I followed carefully while they were visible ; but, with all my 

 care, the track was soon lost ; and as the land was again closed 

 from view, we should have been in grievous difficulty had not 

 the compass guided me. The risk was indeed great ; for in such 

 a storm we might easily have gone out to sea, or the ice of the 

 bay on which we were traveling might have broken up and car- 

 ried us away. 



Providentially, we reached the encampment — my fifth, as I 

 called it, which was the same as the third — at 5 10 P.M., find- 

 ing Sharkey on the look-out, anxiously awaiting us, while Koo- 

 jesse was out in search of me. The Innuits, all through the pre- 

 vious night, had kept my lantern suspended to a pole by the igloo 

 as a beacon light. Hot suppers were quickly prepared for us by 

 the women, and we soon retired to rest. 



