Page:McClure's Magazine volume 10.djvu/240

426 The third probability is that the air-ship was driven by the winds far to the east or northward of Franz Josef Land. In such case the explorers are probably lost. Assuming that they safely reached the ice-sheet which covers the Polar ocean, saving all their supplies, instruments, and equipment, this was the situation which confronted them: to save their lives they must get to the land within eight weeks. Out upon the Polar pack no game can be had, except by rarest good luck a stray bear comes that way. Andrée and his men had with them provisions for but four months. With this supply they could live till Christmas, but in order to secure food with which to survive the winter they must reach the land by the end of September at the latest, before the bear, seal, and walrus had disappeared. The distance which they could travel between the probable date of the descent and the closing in of winter may be estimated at 250 miles at the greatest. In August and early September the condition of the ice-pack is at its worst for sledging, being soft and slushy, with many pools half filled with sludge through which a boat cannot be rowed and over which a man cannot walk.

But were Andrée and his comrades able to descend to the land or to the frozen surface of the sea without injury to themselves and without loss of their precious food and equipment? It all depends upon the state of the wind. In light airs an aëronaut may descend to earth without much trouble or danger, but a descent in a smart wind is another story. When the car strikes the earth and its weight is taken from the balloon, the great ball rebounds mightily and is up and away. As more and more gas escapes through the open valve it comes down again, only to repeat its upward leap, though with diminished force. Hence, often, their safety depends on whether the aëronauts are able to cut their car loose before they are themselves spilled out or severely injured. Unfortunately, instead of storing his food, sledge, boat, instruments, and other equipment in the car, and then arranging a device by which the car could, in an emergency, be quickly cut loose from the balloon itself, Andrée carried all his provisions and equipment above the suspension-ring of his air-ship, between the forty-eight ropes that attach the suspension-ring to the netting. What may easily have happened, therefore, was the escape of the balloon, carrying with it the precious supplies and outfit, after the occupants had themselves been spilled out upon the land or pack-ice.

If the "Ornen" came down in the sea, the aëronauts were drowned. If it descended in the loose pack-ice southeast of Spitzbergen, they have probably perished, as it would be next to impossible for them to reach land by sledging over such a surface. If it alighted upon Franz Josef Land, or upon the ice near it, without accident, they are almost certainly safe. If the descent was made upon the Polar pack more than 250 miles from Cape Flora, they are lost. If they are now alive, the chances are they will next summer be found in the Jackson house at Cape Flora.