The Redwood gazette. [volume] (Redwood Falls, Minn.) 1873-1940, 1894-09-20

against the serried front of her enemy and
shivered all her timbers in the effort, it
was In the expectation that we had met
the heavy pack ice which comes down
from the north and were doomed to many
days OF provoking delay. But not So The
ice was light, or what Is known as spring
ice, having been recently formed by drop
of the temperature upon water whence the
heavier or winters ice had been foated
away by wind or tide. There are many
different kinds of ice in this region, and
our introduction to them has so far been
on an ascending scale. The most formi-
dable OF all ice is that known as the pack,
formed through season after season, bro
ken up or underrun till the natural thick
ness of about feet is increased sometimes
to 80 or 40 feet. We have as yet seen none
of this ice. Next to it is what is called
winter ice, which is usually comparative.
ly level and from to feet thick. Third
in the list is this spring ice, which we are
now meeting. 1t is from to 3 feet thick,
though rarely the latter.
The Crows Nest.
If it lay in continuous sheets, ship
could not be forced through it, but fortu-
nately it lies in small masses, all snow
covered, and the Jarl easily forces them
aside and plows along. Captain Bottelfsen
is in the crows nest, spyglass in hand,
picking out the road. Now and then he
calls out to the mate on the bridge below,
"Luf her!" or ''Steady!' or ''Larboard''
as the case may be, and motions also with
his arm hanging over the side of his nest.
The crows nest, the reader may OR may
not know, is simply large barrel dashed
to the topmast, as high as it can be safely
placed 1t is deep enough. to contain the
body of q man, and wind guard, NOV
able, protects his face against the fierce
ness of arctic blasts. Nevertheless it is a
cold berth, especially in stormy weather.
With high wind and temperature 90 or
80 degrees below freezing, a vigil up here
makes enormous demands upon the vital
forces. Yet many a skipper has found it
necessary to remain six or eight hours at a
time in his crows nest, getting his craft
out of difficulties, with the mercury even
lower than that point of which we are
speaking. II Captain Bottelfsen were not
such . modest man, he could tales unfold
of hong watches In the barrel during his
IL years OF arctic navigation.
This loose winter ice which was encoun-
tered of Bell sound, sort of bay CORE
spending generally to the Melville bay of
the Greenland waters, gave us little trou-
BILE tdll we had reached its farther end, and
there the tide and wind together had
pressed it SO compactly that the Jarl
moved but few feet in a minute and
finally stuck fast. Then Captain Botteif
SEN sang omt an order to the nachinist
the engines were hacked, leaving a clear
waterway forward, and with the machin-
cry driven At double speed we rushed for
ward. With bump and grind and a
final long pull, the Jarl forced her way
through the obstacle and on reaching the
open water beyond bounded away like q
boy let out OF school.
Our detention here had been OF but q
few hours' duration, and with clear water
along the coast and the southern end of
Prince Charles foreland, about 20 miles
away, we steamed along in the best of
spirits.
At the right are the snow covered noun
tains of the Spitzbergen coast, and the air
Captain B0ttelfsen of having played some
sailorman's joke upon us and brought us
to the tropics instead of the arctics For
answer he points to one of the peaks which
guard the entrance to Ice ford and re.
graduate one another upon our luck, which
is already seen to be phenomenal. In the
morning Of the fourth day out from from
so we are we'll within the Spitzbergen
seas, and our skipper says we are likely to
find a clear road to Danes island, with
the cautious proviso that trouble may be
met with off the foreland, a little farther
north. Captain Petersen, experienced skip
per in these waters that he is, said before
we left Tromso that he would wager 100
kroners we should not reach Danes island
before the LIST of June, and one of our Nor
wegian members tells us that the wise
professors of the Christiania university
had declared we should not be able to
make our headquarters before the middle
of July.
Waiting For an Opening.
We retired last night with the welcome
whirl Of the engines to lull us to sleep and
to help in overcoming the unfavorable in
fuence of the midnight sun streaming in
our cabin windows. We had visions of
reaching Danes island within 80 hours,
and thus being able to break all records.
But you can never tell what is going to