Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/486

 470 shape and form, at times making the navigation so intricate as to call forth the utmost vigilance and watchfulness from those on board, their edges adorned with pendent fringes of icicles, while the bright blue and green tints reflected from these huge mountains of ice tend to render it a scene such as is hardly to be realized by those who have never witnessed it. The Danish settlement of Lievely, or Godhavn, at the southwest extreme of the island of Disco, and Upernavik, the most northern settlement, are reached, dogs are purchased and taken on board, Esquimaux dog-drivers engaged, and the necessary skins and dog-food procured.

Now commences the first really serious work of the exploring ships. One day's run from Upernavik and Cape Shackleton is reached, from which is sighted the dreaded floe-ice of Melville Bay, a spot which, until the introduction of steam, has proved fatal to many a gallant bark. To an inexperienced eye this ice seems of an impassable and impenetrable nature, but to those acquainted with ice-navigation a lead may appear through which the ship is steered. Much depends on the wind in making a passage through Melville Bay. If it is calm, or if the wind is from the north, the ice loosens, and ships must then make the best of their time and push on speedily; but if the wind is from the south it causes the loose ice-floes of Baffin's Bay to pack against the land or fixed ice, and woe betide the unfortunate vessel that should be nipped between the two! The only means of escaping destruction is by cutting a dock in the land-ice and warping the ship into it. Steam, however, has of late years produced such a revolution in ice-navigation, that the animated scene of 200 or 300 seamen landed on the floe, busily employed in the operation of cutting docks, is now seldom or never witnessed. The last English Government Expedition, that of Sir Edward Belcher, took no less than five weeks going through Melville Bay, although the expedition was accompanied by a couple of steam-tenders, commanded by experienced and energetic officers. When Commander Markham went through Melville Bay in 1873, in the steam-whaler Arctic, the time occupied was only sixty hours, and last year the whole of the whaling-fleet succeeded in making the passage in three days! Such is the advantage we have gained by the aid of steam. Detention in Melville Bay is, even with a steamer, probable, but seldom for a long duration. When such is the case, ice-anchors are got out, and the ship is moored to the floe, waiting an opportunity for the ice to ease off. Perhaps it is only a neck of ice that prevents the ship from proceeding; in which case, with a full head of steam, the objectionable barrier is rammed, and the ship is forced through, emerging into the open water beyond. Even during these detentions the time may be beguiled in shooting looms and rotges, which are capital eating, harpooning narwhals and stalking seals, or in the more exciting sport of bear-hunting. Sport, together with the strange and novel scenery, and the beauties of the midnight sun,