WE DRIFT AWAY FROM THE LAND 49 
around you and you are worse off than before. 
The heavy wind did not allow this crack to remain 
open more than a few hours. 
On the second and again on the third we caught 
glimpses of the land. On the third the same gale 
that destroyed part of the town of Nome sent us 
bowling along to the northwest. Occasionally we 
saw open water but it was always far away. The 
weather on the fourth and fifth was delightful, with 
the temperature up in the forties, and on the fifth 
we had a beautiful sunset. Mamen, Malloch and 
I went ski-jumping in the bright sunshine and had 
a wonderful afternoon of it. 
We were now fast drifting to the northwest, off 
Point Barrow, getting outside the twenty-fathom 
curve. The farther north we drifted the deeper 
the water was becoming and the more varied in 
yield, for we kept up the dredging and now we be¬ 
gan to get flora and fauna characteristic of the 
deep sea, instead of the specimens peculiar to the 
waters near shore. Our soundings were kept up 
constantly and showed that we were sliding off the 
continental shelf, so to speak, info the ocean depths. 
The dredging and soundings were both carried on 
through a hole in the ice, which we had made at the 
stern of the ship. Here we had an igloo—a snow- 
house—for protection. 
Peary had given me the first stimulus to seek 
