314 APPENDIX NO. II. 
My collections of natural histoiy were also carried as far as the sick- 
station at Anoatok ; but, under a reluctant conviction that a further 
effort to preserve them would risk the safety of the party, they were 
finally abandoned. It is grateful to me to recollect the devotion of my 
comrades, who volunteered to sacrifice shares of both food and clothing 
to secure these records of our labors. 
We were able, not without difficulty, to carry our chronometers and 
the various instruments, magnetic and others, which might allow me 
still to make and verify our accustomed observations. Wo left behind 
the theodolite of the United States Coast Survey and the valuable self¬ 
registering barometric apparatus furnished by the American Philo¬ 
sophical Society. Our library, as well those portions which had 
been furnished by the government and by Mr. Grinnell as my own, 
were necessarily sacrificed. We preserved only the documents of the 
Expedition. 
The first portions of our journey filled me with misgivings, as the 
weakness of the party showed itself in dropsical swellings and excessive 
difficulty of respiration. In spite of a careful system of training, the 
first exposure to temperatures ranging about zero and below it were to 
an invalid party extremely trying; and for the first eight days the 
entire distance accomplished from the ship did not exceed fifteen miles. 
Although the mean rate of transportation was afterward increased,, it 
never exceeded three and a half miles a day over ice. Some idea 
may be formed by the Department of the nature of this journey from 
the fact that every three and a half miles thus attained cost us from 
twelve to fifteen miles of actual travel. 
To sustain the party by the aid of fresh food required dog-journeys to 
the south settlements of the Esquimaux, distant from us about seventy- 
five miles. I found it necessary, also, to return from time to time to 
the brig, with the view of augmenting our supplies. My last visit to 
her was on the 8t.h of June, for the purpose of procuring some pork 
to serve for fuel. She was then precisely as when we loft her on the 
17th of May, immovably frozen in, with nine feet of solid ice under 
her bows. We availed ourselves of the occasional facilities which 
these visits allowed us to increase our stock of bread, of which we 
succeeded in baking four hundred and eighty pounds. 
Continuing our southward progress, we neared Littleton Island. 
Our sick, first left at Anoatok, were gradually brought down to the 
boats as some of them gained strength enough to aid in the labor of 
dragging. The condition of the ice as it became thinner and decaying 
made this labor more difficult; and, in the course of our many breaks 
