280 
BEACON-CAIRN 
IMALIK. 
for fuel when the occasion should come. A large 
beacon-cairn was built on an eminence, open to view 
from the south and west; and a red flannel shirt, 
spared with some reluctance, was hoisted as a pennant 
to draw attention to the spot. Here I deposited a 
succinct record of our condition and purposes, and 
then directed our course south by west into the ice¬ 
fields. 
By degrees the ice through which we were moving 
became more and more impacted; and it sometimes 
required all our ice-knowledge to determine whether a 
particular lead was practicable or not. The irregu- 
* 
