The Dip of the Needle.--The North Magnetic Pole.--A _Kayak_
Bottom up, with its Owner Head down.--Ice-Patches.--Anchoring
to an Ice-floe.--A Bear-hunt in the Fog.--Bruin charges his
Enemies.--Soundings.--The Depth of the Straits.
Before we were up next morning "The Curlew" was on her way.
A great number of small islands, not even indicated on our chart,
compelled us to veer to the southward during the forenoon.
For several days the needle of our compass had been giving us some
trouble by its strong inclination to _dip_. Three times, since
starting, we had been obliged to move the sliding weight out a little
on the bar. The farther north we got, the stronger was the tendency of
the north pole, or end of the needle, to point downward, and the south
pole to rise up correspondingly. By running the sliding weight out a
little toward the south pole, its leverage was increased, and the
parallel position restored. This was what Capt. Mazard was doing when
we went on deck that morning.
"How do you account for this _dipping_ of the needle?" he asked Raed.
"By the present theory of magnetism, the earth itself is considered to
be a magnet with two poles," replied Raed. "These poles attract and
repel the corresponding poles of a magnetic needle, just as another
large needle would. The nearer we get up to the north magnetic pole of
the earth, the more the pole of our needle is pulled down toward it.
We're not such a great distance from it now. What's our latitude this
morning?"
"63° 27'."
"Capt. Ross, in the expedition of 1829, made out the earth's north
magnetic pole to be in 70° north latitude, farther west, in the upper
part of Hudson Bay. At that place he reports that a magnetic needle,
suspended so that it turned easily, pointed directly downward."
"We've got a needle hung in a graduated scale downstairs," remarked
Kit.
We had nearly forgotten it, however.
"Bring it up," said Raed.
Wade went after it.
It was set on the deck, and, after vibrating a few seconds, came to
rest at a _dip_ of about 83°.
"If we were up at the point Capt. Ross reached, it would point
directly down, or at 90°, I suppose," said Kit.
"That's what he reported," said Raed. "There's no reason to doubt it."
"But where is the south pole?" Wade asked.
"That has never been exactly reached," said Raed. "It is supposed to
be in 75°, south latitude, south of New Holland, in the Southern
Ocean. A point has been reached where the _dip_ is 88-2/3°, however."
"Of course this magnetic pole that Ross found in 70° is not the _bona
fide_ north pole of the earth," Wade observed.
"Oh, no!" said the captain. "The _genuine_ north pole is not so easily
reached."
"It's curious what this magnetic attraction is," said Kit
reflectively.
"It is now considered to be the same thing as electricity, is it not?"
I asked.
"Yes," replied Kit; "but whether they are a _fluid_ or a _force_ is
not so clear. Tyndall and Faraday think they are a sort of _force_."
"It is found that this _dip_ of the needle, or, in other words, the
position of the magnetic poles, varies with the amount of heat which
the earth receives from the sun," remarked Raed. "We know that heat
can be changed into electricity, and, consequently, into magnetism.
So, at those seasons of the year when the earth receives least
sun-heat, there is least electric and magnetic force."
"That only confirms me in my belief that the luminiferous ether
through which light and heat come from the sun is really the electric
and magnetic element itself," remarked Kit; "that strange fluid which
runs through the earth as water does through a sponge, making
currents, the direction of which are indicated by these magnetic
poles. The same silent fluid which makes this needle point down to the
deck makes the telegraphic instrument click, makes the northern
lights, and makes the lightning."
"I agree with you exactly," said Raed.
It's no use talking with these two fellows: they've made a regular
hobby of this thing, and ride it every chance they get.
Prince Henry's Foreland, on the south side of the straits, was in
sight at noon, distant, we presumed,--from our estimate of the width
of the passage at this place,--about eleven leagues. It is a high,
bold promontory of the south main of Labrador. At this distance it
rises prominently from the sea. The glass shows it to be bare, and
destitute of vegetation. By two o'clock, P.M., we had passed the
scattered islets, and bore up toward the north main again to avoid the
floating ice. At five we were running close under a single high island
of perhaps an acre in extent, and rising full a hundred feet above the
sea, when old Trull, who was in the bows, called sharply to the man
at the wheel to put the helm a-starboard.
"What's that for?" shouted the captain, who was standing near the
binnacle.
"Come and take a look at this, sur," replied the old man.
Kit and I were just coming up the companion-stairs, and ran forward
with the captain. A long, leather-colored _fish_, as we thought at
first, was floating just under the starboard bow.
"Thought it was a low ledge," said the old man. "I see 'twan't a
moment after. I take that to be a sea-sarpent, sur."
As the object was certainly twenty feet long, and not more than a foot
and a half in diameter, Trull's supposition had the benefit of outside
resemblance. The captain seized one of the pike-poles, and made a jab
at it; but the schooner, under full headway, had passed it too far.
"Get a musket!" shouted Kit.
We all made a rush down stairs for the gun-rack. Only three were
loaded. Catching up one of these, I ran up.
"Off astern there!" cried Weymouth.
We were already fifty yards away; but, getting a glimpse of it, I
fired. There was no movement.
"Missed him!" exclaimed Wade. "I'll bore him!"
He fired. Still there was no apparent motion.
"Miss number two," said I.
Kit then took a careful aim, and banged away. The creature didn't
stir.
"Number three," laughed Wade.
"That fish must either bear a charmed life, or else it's ball-proof!"
Kit exclaimed.
Meanwhile "The Curlew" was being brought round. The captain was
getting interested. Raed brought up one of our long cod-lines with the
grapnel on it,--the same contrivance with which old Trull had drawn in
the boat some days before; and, on getting back within twenty yards,
he threw it off. It struck into the water beyond, and, on being drawn
in, played over the back of the leathern object till one of the hooks
caught fast. Still there was no movement.
"There can't be any life in it," said Wade.
Raed pulled in slowly, the captain assisting him, till they had drawn
it up under the bows. It certainly looked as much like a sea-serpent
as any thing yet. A strong line, with another grapple, was then let
down, and hooked into it with a jerk. Donovan and Hobbs tugged away at
it; one foot--two feet--three feet.
"Humph!" exclaimed the captain. "One of those Husky _kayaks_!"
Four feet--five feet--six feet. Something rose with it, dripping
underneath.
"Good Heavens!" exclaimed Raed, turning away.
"There's an Esquimaux in it, hanging head down!" cried Kit.
The sailors crowded round. It was a ghastly sight. The legs of the
corpse were still fast inside the little hoop around the hole in the
deck in which the man had sat. His arms hung down limp and dripping.
His long black hair streamed with water. He might have been floating
there head down for a week.
"Wal, I shouldn't s'pose the darn'd fool need to have expected any
thing else!" exclaimed Corliss. "To go to sea with his feet fast in
such a little skite of a craft as that! Might ha' known the darned
thing 'ud 'a' capsized an' drownded him."
"What shall we do with _it_?" I asked. "We might sink it with three or
four of those six-pound shot, I suppose."
"No, no!" exclaimed Wade. "We can't afford six-pound shots to bury the
heathen: it's as much as we can do to get enough to kill them with."
"Oh, don't, Wade!" said Raed. "It's a sad sight at best."
"Of course it is. But then we've only got seventeen balls left, and no
knowing how many battles to fight."
This last argument was a clincher.
"Let go!" ordered the captain.
Don and Hobbs shook the line violently, but couldn't tear out the
grapple from the tough seal-skin.
"Well, let go line and all, then!" cried the captain.
With a dull plash the _kayak_ fell back into the sea; and we all
turned away.
At midnight the ice-patches were thickening rapidly; and by two
o'clock all sail had to be taken in, the bumps had grown so frequent
and heavy. On the port side lay a large ice-floe of many acres extent.
The schooner gradually drifted up to it. Raed and Kit had gone on
deck.
"I think we may as well make fast to it," I heard the captain say;
and, a moment later, the order was given to get out the ice-anchors.
Wade and I then went up. "The Curlew" lay broadside against the floe.
The wind, with a current caused perhaps by the tide, held us up to it
so forcibly, that the vessel careened slightly. Weymouth and Hobbs
were getting down on to the ice with the ice-chisels in their hands,
and, going off twenty or thirty yards, began to cut holes. The
ice-anchors were then thrown over on to the floe. To each of them was
bent one of our two-and-a-half-inch hawsers. The anchors themselves
were, as will probably be remembered, simply large, strong grapnels.
Dragging them along to the holes, they were hooked into the ice, and
the hawsers drawn in tight from deck. Planks, secured to the rail by
lines, were then run down to bear the chafe. This was our process of
anchoring to ice. Sometimes three or four grapnels were used when the
tendency to swing off was greater. To-night there was so much floating
ice all about, that the swell was almost entirely broken, and the
schooner lay as quiet as if in a country lake. A watch was set, and we
turned in again.
Breakfast at six. Fog thick and flat on the ice. The breeze in the
night, blowing against the schooner, had turned the ice-field
completely round. Occasionally a cake of ice would bump up against us.
We could hear them grinding together all about; yet the wind was
light, otherwise we might have had heavier thumps. About seven o'clock
we heard a splashing out along the floe.
"Seals!" remarked the captain.
"Bet you, I'll have one of those fellows!" exclaimed Donovan, catching
up a pike-pole, and dropping over the rail.
"Can he get near enough to kill them with a pole, suppose?" Wade
queried.
"That's the way the sealers kill them," replied the captain. "Send
the men out on the ice with nothing but clubs and knives. The seals
can't move very fast: nothing but their flippers to help themselves
with. The men run along the edges of the ice, and get between them and
the water. The seals make for the water; and the men knock them on the
heads with clubs, and then butcher them."
"It's a horribly bloody business, I should think," said Raed.
"Well, not so bad as a Brighton slaughter-pen, quite," rejoined the
captain. "But I never much admired it, I must confess."
Just then Donovan came racing out of the fog, and, jumping for the
rail, drew his legs up as if he believed them in great peril.
"What ails you?" Kit cried out. "What are you running from?"
"Oh! nothing--much," replied Donovan, panting. "Met--a--bear out here:
that's all."
"Met a bear!" exclaimed Raed.
"Yes. I was going along, trying to get by some of the seals. All at
once I was face to face with a mighty great chap, on the same business
with myself, I suppose. Thought I wouldn't wait. He looked pretty big.
I'd nothing but the pole, you know."
"We must have him!" exclaimed Wade.
"Best way will be to let down the boat, and work round the floe to
prevent his taking to the water," advised the captain. "They will swim
like ducks three or four miles at a time."
While the boat was being let down, Kit and I ran to load the muskets.
"I'm going to put the bayonets on our two," said Kit. "They'll be
handy if we should come to close quarters with him."
Raed and Wade, with the captain, were getting ready to go out on the
ice. Weymouth and Hobbs were already in the boat. Kit and I followed.
"Now be very careful about firing in this fog," the captain called
after us. "We are going off to the right, round the edge of the floe
on that side. You keep off on the left to see that he don't escape
that way. Head him up toward the schooner if you can; but look out how
you shoot."
Old Trull and Corliss, each with a gun, had been stationed at the rail
to shoot the bear from the deck if he should come out in sight.
Thus arranged, we pulled away, veering in and out among the
ice-patches, and keeping about twenty yards from the floe. We could
just see the edge of it rising a few feet from the water.
"Guess the bear run from Don after all his fright," said Weymouth
when we had gone a hundred yards or more.
He was not on our side, we felt pretty sure; and, a few minutes later,
Guard barked, and we heard the captain shouting from across the field.
"Here he is over here!" And a moment after, "Gone over towards your
side! Look out for him!"
We _looked out_ as sharply as we could for fog: nevertheless, the
first notice we got of his arrival in our vicinity was a splash into
the water several rods farther on.
"Give way sharp," shouted Kit, "or we shall lose him!"
The boat leaped under the strong stroke; and, a moment after, we saw
the bear climbing out on to a cake, which tipped up as he got on to
it.
"Give him your shot, Wash!" Kit exclaimed.
We were not more than fifty feet away. I aimed for his head, and let
go. The bullet clipped one of his ears merely, and he turned round
with a dreadfully savage growl. Of course it was a bad shot; but some
allowance must be made for the rocking of the boat. As he turned to
us, the ice-cake tipped and rolled under him, nearly throwing him off;
at which he growled and _barked out_ all the louder. Kit hesitated to
fire.
"He might make a break, and get his paws on to the boat before we
could back off, if you shouldn't kill him," said Hobbs.
"Load as quick as you can, Wash," Kit said. "I'll wait till we have a
reserve shot."
Meanwhile we heard voices coming out on the floe. Guard began to bark
again, and came jumping from cake to cake out within a few rods of the
bear, and rather between us and him.
"Be ready, now," said Kit; when some one of the party on the floe
fired on a sudden.
Instantly the bear jumped for the dog; and the dog, turning, leaped
for a little cake between him and the boat. The bear splashed through,
and gained the cake Guard had stood on.
Crack--crack! from the floe.
The bear growled frightfully as he felt the bullets, and plunged after
the dog. We both fired as he went down into the water. Guard's paws
were already on the gunwale, when the bear rose, head and paws, and
swept the dog down with him, _souse_! A howl and a growl mingled. The
water was streaked red with the bear's blood. The captain and Wade and
Donovan came leaping out from one fragment to another. Up popped the
dog's black head. Something bumped the bottom of the boat
simultaneously. The bear had come up under us, and floated out on the
port side, a great mass of dripping, struggling white hair. Everybody
was shouting now. Wade fired. Bits of blazing cartridge-paper flew
into our faces. Kit and I thrust wildly with our bayonets; but the
poor beast had already ceased all offensive warfare. He was dead
enough. But who had killed him it was hard saying. No less than seven
bullets had been fired into him from "a standard weapon," as Wade
calls our muskets. We towed the carcass up to the edge of the floe,
and pulled it up. The captain estimated its gross weight to be from
four hundred and fifty to five hundred pounds. This was the largest
one we had killed. Donovan and Weymouth and Hobbs were occupied the
rest of the forenoon skinning it.
It being a favorable opportunity, we improved it to make soundings.
From where we lay moored to the floe, the nearest island was about
three leagues to the east, and the northern main from ten to twelve
miles. For sounding we had a twenty-four-pound iron weight, with a
staple leaded into it for the line. Dropping it out of the stern, we
ran out a hundred and seventy-three fathoms before it slacked. The
depth of the strait at that place was given at ten hundred and
thirty-eight feet. I should add, that this was considerably deeper
than we had found it below that point.