Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1909-10-09
moved from the soft snow shelf of the
igioo to the hard, windswept crust.
Trivialities Food for Thought.

In my wakeful watches to get "A peep
of the sun at just the right moment I
was kept awake during much of the rest
ing period, and for pastime my eyes wan
dered from snorting dogs To snoring men.
During one of these idle moments there
came solution Of the utility OF the dogs
tail. topic with which / had been at
play for several days. 1t IS quoted here
at the risk OF censure. because II Is u
typical phase of our lives which cannot
be illustrated otherwise. Seeming trivial
lteS were seized upon as food for thought
why has the deg a tail at all? The bear
the musk OK. the caribou and the hare
each In its own way succeeds very well
with but dwarfed stub. Why does ma
ture in the dog expend its best effort in
growing the finest fur over a seemingly
useless line of tail bones? The thing Is
distinctive. and one could hardly con-
Gceive of the creature without this acces-
sorry, but nature In the arctic does not
often waste energy to display beauties
an important use, otherwise il would
soon fall under the knife of frost and
time. Yes. 1t was imported into the
arctic by the wolf pre- genitor of the dog
from warmer lands. where its swing
served useful purpose i'm fly time \
nose made 10 breathe warm air REQUIRES
some protection in the far north. No an
imal feels this shortcoming as much
man. The dog supplied the need with
his tail. At the time when I made this
discovery cold wind charged with cut
ting crystals brushed the pack. Each
dog had his back arched to the wind and
his face yelled with an effective curl Of
his tail. He was comfortably shielded
from icy torment by an appendage adapt
ed to that very purpose.
A Heavy Snowstorm.
May We were stopped at 6 am. by the
coming of the gloom of an unusual gale.
The wind had been steady and strong all
night. but We did not heed its threatening
increase of force until too late. 1t came
from the west as usual, driving coarse
snow with needle points. The ice about
was old and hummocky. Offering diff
ficult line of march. nut some shelter. In
the strongest blasts we threw ourselves
| over the sled behind hummocks and gath
cred new breath to force a few miles
more.
Finally when longer able to force
the dogs through the binding drift we
sought the lee of an uplifted block of
ice. Here suitable snow was found for
a snowhouse and a few blocks were cut
and set. but the wind swept them away
like chips. The tent was tried but il
could not be made to stand in the rush
OF the roaring tumult. In sheer despair
the pole. Creeping into the bags, we
then allowed the Tapping silk to be buried
by the drifting snow. Soon the noise and
discCn. fort Of the storm were lost and We
enjoyed the comfort of an icy grave. An
| efficient breathing hole was kept open
and the wind was strong enough to sweep
off the weight of a dangerous drift. a
| new lesson was thus learned in fighting
the battle of life which was afterward
useful
| Several days of icy despair now fol-
| lowed each other in rapid succession. The
wind did not rise to the full force Of
to travel. The food supply was noticeably
decreasing The daily advance was re-
| duced. With such weather starvation
seemed inevitable.
Camp was moved nearly every day, but
ambition sank to the lowest ebb To the
atmospheric unrest were added the in
stability of broken ice and the depressing
mystery of an unknown position. For
many days no observations had been pos
| sible and our location could only be
guessed at.
The maddening struggle was daily
forced, while the spirits were pressed to
the verge Of extinction. Now that the
object OF our trip had been accomplish
ed. much of the incentive was gone. At
| times 1t seemed II our lifes work
had been accomplished. and to have lain
down for the final sleep would have been
easy. but the feeble fires of the homing
passion kept the eye open.
At the Eighty-Fourth Parallel.
On May "a the sky cleared long enough
to give us set Of observations. We were
on the eighty-fourth parallel. near the
ninety seventh meridian. The new lands
were hidden behind low mist The ice
was much crevassed and drifted east
ward. Many open spaces OF water were
noted in the west by patches OF water
| sky.
| The pack was sufficiently active to giev
us considerable anxiety. though pressure
lines and open water did not at the time
seriously impede our progress.
! There remained on the sleds scarcely
enough food to reach our caches. unless
we averaged fifteen miles daily. On the
return from the pole to here we had only
been able to make twelve miles daily.
Now our strength, even under fair condi-
| tons, did not seem to be equal to more
| than ten miles. The outlook was far
from hopeful to me, though the sight of
the cleared sky infused new courage into
| Etukhishuk and Ahwelah.
| Trying to make the best of our hard
| lot, q straight course was set for the
musk OK lands Of the inner crossing.
| At the eighty-third parallel we found
ourselves to the west of large tract ex-
tending southwark. The ice changed To
small fields. The temperature rose to zero
and a persistent mist obscured the
heavens.
| With a few lines on paper to register
! the life of suffering, the food for man and
dog was reduced to a three-quarter ration.
| while the difficulties of ice travel rose To
d.sheartenng heights.
| At the end of a struggle Of twenty days
| through thick fog the sky cleared and
we found ourselves far down in Crown
! Prince Gustav sea. with open water and
| impossible small ice as barrier between
us and Heiberg Island
With the return TO AnnoOtok rendered
| impossible by the unfortunate westerly
drift our only alternative was to go south
| with the ice. We hoped in this course TO
| find game for food and fuel The Scot
| fish whalers enter Lancaster sound and
| touch at Port Leopold. The distance to
| this point was shorter than that to Green
| land, and by this route L hoped that l
could return to Europe during the same
| year. 1908.
Passing through Hassel sound between
| the Ringnes Lands bears and seals were
secured, and slowly we moved southwark
over Norwegian bay into Wellington
channel The ice was small, there was
much open water and progress was slow,
but the drift carried us along.
Crossed to Jones Sound.
At Pioneer bay we were stopped by
Jam Of small ice over which Shedding was
/ l- h. s..@