Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/151

 the cold weather of midwinter than in the warmer weather of midsummer.

October 19th.

A lively party visited Chester Valley to-day. They started early with two sledges—Sonntag, with Jensen on one, Knorr and Hans on the other. Sonntag carried out the theodolite and chain to make a survey of the glacier. The others, of course, took their rifles. They saw numerous reindeer, but shot only three. One of these was a trophy of Mr. Knorr's, and had like to have cost him dearly. The poor animal had been badly wounded in the valley, and on three legs tried to climb the steep hill. Knorr, following it, reached at length within twenty yards, and brought it down with a well-directed shot; but the hunter and the victim being, unfortunately for the former, in a line, the hunter was carried off his legs, and the two together went tumbling over the rocks in a manner which, to those below, looked rather alarming. Report does not say how the boy extricated himself. It is lucky, however, that, instead of broken bones, he has only a few bruises to show for his adventure.

Sonntag, too, had his story to tell. Reaching the glacier, he ascended to its surface, after travelling two miles along the gorge made by the glacier on the one side and the sloping mountain on the other. The ascent was made by means of steps cut with a hatchet in the solid ice. The glacier was found to be crossed in places by deep narrow fissures, bridged with a crust of snow, and so completely covered as to defy detection. Into one of these, fortunately a very narrow one, the astronomer was precipitated by the giving way of the bridge, and it is probable that he would have lost his life but for a barometer which he carried