The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1910-02-14
DYNAMITE HELPED
 PEARY TO POLE
When Arctic Ice Became Too Thick He Blasted It

To any prospective Pole-hunter who
 imagines he need simply charter a
 ship and sail pleasantly away to 90 de-
 grees North latitude we advise a read
 ing of Peary's article in the forth
 coming March Hampton's Magazine
 wherein for over a, dozen pages he de-
 scribes the terrific, e-straining,
 sleep prohibiting fight of the stout lit
 tie Roosevelt against a sea packed
 with maverick bergs and ice floes run amuck.
 In one case it was even necessary to dynamite the ice, in order to save the ship from being crushed.
 'I think that none of the members of the expedition will ever forget the 30th of August" says Peary. ''The Roosevelt was kicked about the floes as if she had been football. The game began about four o'clock in the morning. I was in my cabin try ing to get a little sleep with my move them for a week. My rest was cut short by shock so violent that, before I realized that anything had happened, I found myself on deck-a | deck that inclined to starboard some twelve or fifteen degrees. I ran, or
 rather climbed the deck to the port l side, and saw what had happened. A
 
 1 had picked up the grounded berg to which we were attached by the haw-
 sers, and dashed it against the Roose- welt and clear along her port side, as 1 if th93 thousand-ton berg had been a | toy. The berg brought up against an other one just aft of us, and the
 Roosevelt slipped from between the l two like a greased pig.
 'As soon as the pressure was relax : ed and the ship regained an even keel, 1 we discovered that the cable which l had been attached to the floe berg at 1 the stern had become entangled with Lthe propeller It was time for light ming thought and action; but by at- 1 taching a heavier cable to the parted
 one and taking a hitch round the
 steam capstan, we finally disentang- f, led it.
 tThis excitement was no sooner over ! than a great berg that was passing fnear us split in two of its own accord a cube of some twenty-five or thirty
 feet across dropping toward the ship,
 and just missing our quarter by only 1 foot or two. "Bergs to the right of them, bergs to the left of them, bergs on top of them." I heard somebody say as we caught our breaths at this mi 1 raculous escape.
 "The ship was now quite at the mer- | cy of the drifting ice, and with the pressure from the outer pack the tRoosevelt again careened to starboard. I knew that if she were driven any higher onto the shore, we would have to discharge a large part of the coal | in order to tighten her sufficiently to get her off again. So decided to dyn- amite the ice.
 '.I told Bartlett to get out his bat teries and dynamite, and to smash the 1 ice between the Roosevelt and the
 heavy floes outside, making soft
 cushion for the ship to rest on. The batteries were brought up from the lazaret, one of the dynamite boxes lift ! ed out with caution, and Bartlett and looked for the best places in the ice | for the charges.
 Several sticks of dynamite were
 wrapped in pieces of old bagging and 1 fastened on the end of long spruce poles. which we had brought along specially for this purpose. A wire 1 from the battery had, of course, been 1 connected with one of the primers bur- 1 jed in the dynamite. Pole, wire. and | dynamite were thrust down through 1 a crack in the ice at several places in 1 th., adjacent floe. The other end of each wire was then connected with the battery everyone got away to a re- spectful distance on the far side of the deck, and quick, sharp push on the plunger of the battery sent the cleo ] tric current along the wires.
 1 Rip! bang! boom! The ship shook | like a dish of jelly and a column of water and pieces of ice went flying a | hundred feet into the air, geyser fash 1 ion. The pressure of the ice against the ship being thus removed, she right ed herself and lay quietly on her cush- | ion of crushed ice-waiting for what ever might happen next.