The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1909-10-28

tours. Resolutions were re-enforced and energy was harbored to press on- ward for the pole in an air line.
 Fair Marches Made. Every observation, however, indicat- ed an easterly drift, and a westerly course must be continuously forced to counterbalance the movement A cur tain was drawn over the land in the afternoon of March 31, and we saw no more of it. Day after day we now pushed along in desperate northward efforts. Strong winds and fractured, irregular ice increased the difficulties. Progress was slow.
 In one way or other we managed to gain a fair march between storms dur ing each twenty four hours. In an oc- casfonal spell of stiffness mirages spread screens of fantasy out for our entertainment. Curious cliGk, odd shaped mountains and inverted ice walls were displayed in attractive col ors. Discoveries were made often, but | with clearer horizon the deception was detected.
 On April the barometer remained steady and the thermometer sank The weather became settled and clear. I The pack became more permanent | glitter of color and joy. At noon there l was now a dazzling light, while the sun at midnight sank for but few moments under persistent northerly ] haze, leaving the frosted blues bathed in monday splendor.
 In these days we made long marches. The ice steadily improved. Fields be- came larger and thicker, the pressure lines less frequent and less trouble some. Nothing changed materially. The horizon moved; our footing was seemingly a solid crust of ice, but It | shifted eastward All was in motion. Often we were too tired to build snow houses, and in sheer exhaustion we | bivouacked in the lee of hummocks. Here the overworlsed body called for | sleep. but the mind refused to close the eye.
 1 Tn Iifeiess World. There was a weird attraction in the l anomaly of our surroundings which aroused the spirits. We had passed beyond the range of all life. For many days we had not seen sugges- tion of animated nature There were no longer footprints to indicate other life; no breath spouts escaped from the frosted bosom of the sea. I Even the sea algae of the surface waters were no longer detected. We were alone, all alone, in hfeless world We had come to this mental | blank in slow but progressive stages AS we sailed from the barren areas of the fisher folk along the outposts of ! civilization the complex luxury of the metropolis was lost and the brain call ed for food.
 Beyond in the half savage wilder } ness of Danish Greenland, there was ! the dawn of new life of primitive delight Still farther along, in the 4 ultima Thule of the aborigfnes, the sun rose over the days of prehistoric T joys. Advancing beyond the haunts of man, we reached the monday splen- dor of thought in times before mans creation.
 ! Now, as we pushed beyond the habi- tat of all creatures, ever onward, into the sterile wastes, the sun sets. Be- yond were night and hopelessness- With eager eyes we searched the dusky plains of frost, but there was no speck of life to grace the purple run of death. i In this mid-pelar basin the ice does not readily escape and disentangle. It : is probably in motion at all times of the year. and in the readJustment. of the fields following motion and expar- sion there are open spaces of water, and these during most months are quickly sheeted with new ice.
 Measuring the Ice.
 In these troubled areas we were giv- | IA ice thickness, and from our observa- ;. tions we have come to the conclusion that the ice during one year does not freeze to a depth of more than about ten feet. But much of the ice of the central pack reaches depth of from twenty to twenty five feet, and occa- I sionally we crossed fields fifty feet thick. These invariably showed signs of many years of surface upbunding.
 It is very difficult to surmise the amount of submerged freezing after the first year, but the very uniform thickness of the antarctic sea ice leads to the suggestion that limit is reach- ed in the second year, when the ice, with it's cover of snow, is so thick that very little is added afterward from be- low.
 | ably in the main the result of addi- ton to- the superstructure. Frequent falls of snow, combined with the al- ternate melting and freezing of sum- mer and process similar to the up building of glacial ice, are mainly re- sponsible for the growth in thickness. The very heavy, undulating fields which give character to the mid-polar | sc<, a ,,d aoca no aIup0 thp an rt n r,d xzvnu& coasts Of Greenland are therefore most ly augmented from the surface
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