Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 7.djvu/490

474 partly traveling over the same ground as Sir Edward Parry, he discovered the encampment of his predecessor, and found the remains of his broken cart, and the records left by him thirty years before. Even the remains of Parry's last feast, "a sumptuous meal of ptarmigan," lay strewed about in the shape of bones, by no means decayed, but merely bleached from exposure. McClintock and his gallant party returned to their ship after this long absence, reduced a little in flesh, but not in health or spirits. They had already benefited from the experience of former expeditions.

During the expedition of 1852, the last dispatched by Government in search of our missing countrymen, we find Sir Leopold McClintock in command of the steam-tender Intrepid, acting under the orders of Captain Kellett. On this occasion. Sir Leopold had, through the assiduous and constant exercise of his inventive talent, so improved on his former knowledge of sledge-traveling, that he was enabled to remain away from his ship for a period of 105 days, during which time he traveled over no less than 1,400 statute miles, and this, too, under no very favorable circumstances, as the ice over which he had to journey was old and unusually rugged, snow lay very deep, and Melville Island had to be crossed and recrossed, in addition to which, owing to the few men from whom he had to select his party, he was obliged to portion out to each man a much heavier load than had ever been attempted before. They were most fortunate in obtaining plenty of game. Musk-oxen, deer, and ptarmigan, were seen in abundance, and many shot, the fresh meat from which materially assisted in the preservation of the health of the party.

The words of Sir Leopold McClintock are very true, and very significant, in epitomizing the results of arctic ice-travel. He says: "Truly may we arctic explorers exclaim, 'Knowledge is power!' It is now a comparatively easy matter to start with six or eight men, and a sledge laden with six or seven weeks' provisions, and to travel some 600 miles across desert wastes and frozen seas, from which no sustenance can be obtained. There is now no known position, however remote, that a well-equipped crew could not effect their escape from by their own unaided efforts. We felt this, and by our experience, gained in a cause more glorious than ever man embarked in, have secured to all future arctic explorers a plan by which they may rejoin their fellow-men."

Before detailing the operations connected with the autumn sledge-traveling, it will be necessary to explain the construction of the sledge, and the amount of provisions and stores that will be required for an extended journey. We propose, therefore, to give an account of an eight-man sledge, provisioned and stored for a period of eight weeks, copied from Sir Leopold McClintock's notes. The following particulars describe, with considerable exactness, the equipment which is now being prepared in Portsmouth Dock-yard for use in the forthcoming Arctic Expedition: