56 THE LAST VOYAGE OF THE KARLVK 
with a fire kept going constantly under it to keep 
the water from freezing. We had a fire-fighting 
corps, every man of which knew what he must do 
in case of fire. If fire broke out, the ship’s bell 
would be rung and everybody would seize a block 
of snow or the fire extinguisher or the buckets near 
the water-tank, as his duty required, and help ex¬ 
tinguish the fire. 
Our supplies on the big floe we left at first where 
we put them. Later on as we got opportunity we 
built a regular house, with walls composed of boxes 
and bags of coal, cases of biscuit, barrels and other 
large articles, with lumber, of which we had put 
two thousand feet over on the ice, for flooring, 
scantling for roof and an extra suit of the ship’s 
sails to cover all. We banked it all around with 
snow for warmth. There was a kind of vestibule 
of snowbanks and a canvas door so weighted that 
it would fly to of itself. Later still, in addition to 
this box-house, we built a large snow igloo. 
On the fourteenth for the first time we discon¬ 
tinued the regular nautical routine of watch and 
watch and instead had a night watchman and a day 
watchman, all taking turns at the work. 
We had a new dredge by this time, a larger and 
better one, made by Chief Engineer Munro, with 
a long line, for we were getting soundings of 1200 
fathoms. We brought up a brittle starfish on the 
