THE STORM CONTINUES.--AT WORK.--AMONG THE HUMMOCKS.--DIFFICULTIES
OF THE TRACK.--THE SNOW-DRIFTS.--SLOW PROGRESS.--THE SMITH
SOUND ICE.--FORMATION OF THE HUMMOCKS.--THE OLD ICE-FIELDS
GROWTH OF ICE-FIELDS.--THICKNESS OF ICE.--THE PROSPECT.
I will not lay so heavy a tax upon the reader's patience as to ask
him to follow the pages of my diary through the next three weeks.
Diaries are of necessity so much taken up with matters that are purely
personal and contain so much of endless repetition, so many events that
are of daily recurrence, that it is impossible in the very nature of
things that they can have much interest for anybody but the writers
of them. Suffice it, therefore, to say that the storm continued with
unabated violence during the day succeeding that which closed the last
chapter, and it did not fairly subside until the end of the tenth day.
Meanwhile, however, we were busily occupied. The storm did not keep us
housed.
[Sidenote: DIFFICULTIES OF THE TRACK.]
Our first duty was to bring up the stores left at Cape Hatherton. This
accomplished, we broke up our camp and set out to cross the Sound with
a moderate load, the men dragging the large sledge, while the dogs
were attached as before. The wind had, fortunately, hauled more to the
south, and, coming nearly on our backs, we found little inconvenience
from this source. But difficulties of another kind soon gave us warning
of the serious nature of the task which we had undertaken. By winding
to the right and left, and by occasionally retracing our steps when we
had selected an impracticable route, we managed to get over the first
few miles without much embarrassment, but farther on the track was
rough past description. I can compare it to nothing but a promiscuous
accumulation of rocks closely packed together and piled up over a vast
plain in great heaps and endless ridges, leaving scarcely a foot of
level surface and requiring the traveler to pick the best footing he
can over the inequalities,--sometimes mounting unavoidable obstructions
to an elevation of ten, and again more than a hundred feet above the
general level.
[Sidenote: SLOW PROGRESS.]
The interstices between these closely accumulated ice masses are
filled up, to some extent, with drifted snow. The reader will readily
imagine the rest. He will see the sledges winding through the
tangled wilderness of broken ice-tables, the men and dogs pulling
and pushing up their respective loads, as Napoleon's soldiers may be
supposed to have done when drawing their artillery through the steep
and rugged passes of the Alps. He will see them clambering over the
very summit of lofty ridges, through which there is no opening, and
again descending on the other side, the sledge often plunging over
a precipice, sometimes capsizing, and frequently breaking. Again he
will see the party, baffled in their attempt to cross or find a pass,
breaking a track with shovel and handspike; or, again, unable even
with these appliances to accomplish their end, they retreat to seek a
better track; and they may be lucky enough to find a sort of gap or
gateway, upon the winding and uneven surface of which they will make
a mile or so with comparative ease. The snow-drifts are sometimes
a help and sometimes a hindrance. Their surface is uniformly hard,
but not always firm to the foot. The crust frequently gives way, and
in a most tiresome and provoking manner. It will not quite bear the
weight, and the foot sinks at the very moment when the other is lifted.
But, worse than this, the chasms between the hummocks are frequently
bridged over with snow in such a manner as to leave a considerable
space at the bottom quite unfilled; and at the very moment when all
looks promising, down sinks one man to his middle, another to the neck,
another is buried out of sight, the sledge gives way, and to extricate
the whole from this unhappy predicament is probably the labor of
hours; especially, as often happens, if the sledge must be unloaded;
and this latter is, from many causes, an event of constant occurrence.
Not unfrequently it is necessary to carry the cargo in two or three
loads. The sledges are coming and going continually, and the day is one
endless pull and haul. The nautical cry of the sailors, intended to
inspire unison of action, mingles with the loud and not always amiable
commands of Jensen and Knorr, each urging on his fatigued and toil-worn
dogs.
It would be difficult to imagine any kind of labor more disheartening,
or which would sooner sap the energies of both men and animals. The
strength gave way gradually; and when, as often happened, after a long
and hard day's work, we could look back from an eminence and almost
fire a rifle-ball into our last snow-hut, it was truly discouraging.
I need hardly say that I soon gave up all thought of trying to get the
boat across the Sound. A hundred men could not have accomplished the
task. My only purpose now was to get to the coast of Grinnell Land with
as large a stock of provisions as possible, and to retain the men as
long as they could be of use; but it soon became a question whether the
men themselves could carry over their own provisions independent of the
surplus which I should require in order that the severe labor should
result to advantage. In spite, however, of every thing the men kept
steadfastly to their duty, through sunshine and through storm, through
cold, and danger, and fatigue.
[Sidenote: SMITH SOUND.]
The cause of this extraordinary condition of the ice will need but
little explanation in addition to that which has been given in the
preceding chapter. The reader will have no difficulty in comprehending
the cause by an examination of the Smith Sound map. He will observe
that the Sound is, in effect, an extensive sea, with an axis running
almost east and west, and having a length of about one hundred and
sixty miles and a width of eighty. The name "Sound," by which it is
known, was first given to it by its discoverer, brave old William
Baffin, two hundred and fifty odd years ago. The entrance from Cape
Alexander to Cape Isabella is but thirty miles over, and by referring
to the map it will be seen that this gateway rapidly expands into the
sea to which I have invited attention,--a sea almost as large as the
Caspian or Baltic, measured from the terminus of Baffin Bay to where
Kennedy Channel narrows the waters before they expand into the great
Polar Basin. This extensive sea should bear the name of the leader of
the expedition which first defined its boundaries--I mean, of course,
Dr. Kane.
Now into this sea the current sets from the Polar Basin through the
broader gateway above mentioned, known as Kennedy Channel; and the
ice, escaping but slowly through the narrow Sound into Baffin Bay,
has accumulated within the sea from century to century. The summer
dismembers it to some extent and breaks it up into fragments of varying
size, which are pressing together, wearing and grinding continually,
and crowding down upon each other and upon the Greenland coast, thus
producing the result which we have seen.
[Sidenote: DIMENSIONS OF AN ICE FIELD.]
In order fully to appreciate the power and magnitude of this
ice-movement, it must be borne in mind that a very large proportion
of the ice is of very ancient formation,--old floes or ice-fields
of immense thickness and miles in extent, as well as of icebergs
discharged from Humboldt Glacier. These vast masses, tearing along with
the current in the early winter through the sea as it is closing up and
new ice is making rapidly, are as irresistible as a tornado among the
autumn leaves. As an illustration, I will give the dimensions of an old
field measured by me while crossing the Sound. Its average height was
twenty feet above the sea level, and about six by four miles in extent
of surface, which was very uneven, rising into rounded hillocks as much
as eighty feet in height, and sinking into deep and tortuous valleys.
To cross such a floe with our sledges was almost as difficult as
crossing the hummocks themselves; for, in addition to its uneven
surface, like that of a very rough and broken country, it was covered
with crusted snow through which the sledge-runners cut continually,
and which broke down under the foot. I estimated its solid contents,
in round numbers, at 6,000,000,000 of tons, its depth being about one
hundred and sixty feet. Around its border was thrown up on all sides
a sort of mountain chain of last year's ice, the loftiest pinnacle of
which was one hundred and twenty feet above the level of the sea. This
ice-hill, as it might well be called, was made up of blocks of ice
of every shape and of various sizes, piled one upon the other in the
greatest confusion. Numerous forms equally rugged, though not so lofty,
rose from the same ridge, and from every part of this desolate area;
and if a thousand Lisbons were crowded together and tumbled to pieces
by the shock of an earthquake, the scene could hardly be more rugged,
nor to cross the ruins a severer task.
[Sidenote: ORIGIN OF A FLOE.]
The origin of such a floe dates back to a very remote period. That
it was cradled in some deep recess of the land, and there remained
until it had grown to such a thickness that no summer's sun or water's
washing could wholly obliterate it before the winter cold came again,
is most probable. After this it grows as the glacier grows, from above,
and is, like the glacier, wholly composed of fresh ice,--that is, of
frozen snow. It will be thus seen that the accumulation of ice upon
the mountain tops is not different from the accumulation which takes
place upon these floating fields, and each recurring year marks an
addition to their depth. Vast as they are to the sight, and dwarfs as
they are compared with the inland _mer de glace_, yet they are, in all
that concerns their growth, truly glaciers--pigmy floating glaciers.
That they can only grow to such great depth in this manner will be at
once apparent, when it is borne in mind that ice soon reaches a maximum
thickness by direct freezing, and that its growth is arrested by a
natural law. [Sidenote: AVERAGE THICKNESS OF THE ICE.]
This thickness is of course dependent upon the temperature of the
locality; but the ice is itself the sea's protection. The cold air
cannot soak away the warmth of the water through more than a certain
thickness of ice, and to that thickness there comes a limit long before
the winter has reached its end. The depth of ice formed on the first
night is greater than on the second; the second greater than the third;
the third greater than the fourth; and so on as the increase approaches
nothing. The thickness of ice formed at Port Foulke was nine feet;
and, although the coldest weather came in March, yet its depth was
not increased more than two inches after the middle of February. In
situations of greater cold, and where the current has less influence
than at Port Foulke, the depth of the table will of course become
greater. I have never seen an ice-table formed by direct freezing that
exceeded eighteen feet. But for this all-wise provision of the Deity,
the Arctic waters would, ages ago, have been solid seas of ice to their
profoundest depths.
The reader will, I trust, bear patiently with this long digression;
but I thought it necessary, in order that he might have a clear
understanding as well of our situation as of the character of these
Arctic seas; in which I shall hope that I have inspired some interest.
As for ourselves, we were struggling along through this apparently
impassable labyrinth, striving to reach the coast which now began to
loom up boldly before us, and thence stretching away into the unknown
North, there receives the lashings of the Polar Sea.
[Sidenote: SLOW PROGRESS.]
To come back to the narrative which we abandoned so suddenly. The 24th
of April found us on the margin of the very floe which I have been
describing, weary, worn, and much dispirited. Since we broke camp at
Cairn Point, we had made in a direct line from that place not over
thirty miles. The number of miles actually traveled could not be easily
estimated; but it was scarcely less than five times that distance,
counting all our various twistings and turnings and goings and comings
upon our track. But I propose again to let my diary speak for itself;
and, as on a former occasion, when the evil genius of that unhappy
manuscript led it into type, we will resort to a new chapter.
[Illustration]