Page:The frozen North; an account of Arctic exploration for use in schools (IA frozennorthaccou00hort).pdf/90

 made of skin, and very dirty. They ate the raw flesh of the walrus and drank the blood. Their chief wore a red calico gown as a mark of his high rank. It was a cool garment for so cold a place, but the natives do not feel the cold as keenly as we should.

After sailing along the Siberian coast for a short distance, the Jeannette bade farewell to land and started on her perilous journey.

In the Arctic regions the ice is divided into what is known as young ice and the pack. Young ice is that which is forming all the time. It is thin at first, and vessels can usually cut their way through. The pack is the old ice which has been formed for many years, and is composed of large pieces, called floes, which are often thirty or forty feet thick and extend over a great surface both above and below the water.

The floes sometimes close up and float together as a pack, squeezing in everything between them. Sometimes they separate, leaving channels of water between. The pack floats with the wind and the current, and there is little chance of escape from it. If a ship is caught in the ice pack, it must float with it until a storm or some other change of weather breaks up the pack. When a ship is strong enough to resist the pressure of the ice pack, there is some chance of escape in the spring, but so tremendous is the power of the ice that Arctic voyagers avoid the pack if possible.

It seems to have been De Long's intention deliberately to enter the pack and drift with it, for when, on September 6, he saw an opening between the Siberian and the American packs, he slipped in. At first the Jeannette pushed her way bravely, but after a few hours she was unable to proceed, and soon she was frozen in solidly.