Page:The Wireless Operator with the U.S. Coast Guard.djvu/292

 calculations. But the Oneida had not been able to take a sight for three weeks, so 1t was not surprising, therefore, that when she gave her position to the Iroquois by wireless, and the Iroquois proceeded to the given spot, no cutter was to be seen. When Captain Hardwick found that the Oneida was not at the given position, he wired: “Iroquois is at the meeting point named. Will await you.” And at once the Oneida flashed back the reply: “There is some mistake. We are at the position named. Will await you.”

What a puzzle this situation would have been in the days before the radio compass was invented, and what a game of blind man’s buff those two little cutters would have played among the fogs and mists and icebergs of the Grand Banks. But now Captain Hardwick simply telegraphed the Oneida to remain at anchor and give him a compass bearing. Soon Mr. Sharp came out of the compass shack and told the commander which way to go. That was all there was to it. A few hours later the two ships lay side by side. The Oneida, unable to see the sun for so long, was a great distance from the position she thought she occupied.

As Henry was to learn, there was great reason why a ship should float far and wide in this region of moving mountains of ice. The Grand Banks, formed by the deposit of sediment carried north