114 
reconnoissance. 
blanket for each man to crawl into at night. India- 
rubber cloth was to be the pi-otection from the snow 
beneath. The tent was of canvas, made after the 
plan of our English predecessors. We afterward 
learned to modify and reduce our travelling geai', 
and found that in direct proportion to its simplicity 
and our apparent privation of articles of supposed 
necessity were our actual comfort and practical effi¬ 
ciency. Step by step, as long as our Arctic service 
continued, we went on reducing our sledging outfit, 
until at last we came to the Esquimaux ultimatum 
of simplicity,—raw meat and a fur bag. 
While our arrangements for the winter were still in 
progress, I sent out Mr. Wilson and Dr. Hayes, accom¬ 
panied by our Esquimaux, Hans, to learn something of 
the interior features of the country, and the promise it 
afforded of resources from the hunt. They returned on 
the 16th of September, after a hard travel, made with 
excellent judgment and abundant zeal. They pene¬ 
trated into the interior about ninety miles, when their 
progress was arrested by a glacier, four hundred feet 
high, and extending to the north and west as far as 
the eye could reach. This magnificent body of inte¬ 
rior ice formed on its summit a complete plateau,—a 
mer de glace, abutting upon a broken plain of syenite. (28) 
They found no large lakes. They saw a few reindeer 
at a distance, and numerous hares and rabbits, but no 
ptarmigan. 
“ September 20, Tuesday.—I was unwilling to delay 
my depot party any longer. They left the brig. 
