Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/349



THE STORM CONTINUES.—AT WORK.—AMONG THE HUMMOCKS.—DIFFICULTIES OF THE TRACK.—THE SNOW-DRIFTS.—SLOW PROGRESS.—THE SMITH SOUND ICE.—FORMATION OF THE HUMMOCKS.—THE OLD ICE-FIELDS GROWTH OF ICE-FIELDS.—THICKNESS OF ICE.—THE PROSPECT.

I will not lay so heavy a tax upon the reader's patience as to ask him to follow the pages of my diary through the next three weeks. Diaries are of necessity so much taken up with matters that are purely personal and contain so much of endless repetition, so many events that are of daily recurrence, that it is impossible in the very nature of things that they can have much interest for anybody but the writers of them. Suffice it, therefore, to say that the storm continued with unabated violence during the day succeeding that which closed the last chapter, and it did not fairly subside until the end of the tenth day. Meanwhile, however, we were busily occupied. The storm did not keep us housed.

Our first duty was to bring up the stores left at Cape Hatherton. This accomplished, we broke up our camp and set out to cross the Sound with a moderate load, the men dragging the large sledge, while the dogs were attached as before. The wind had, fortunately, hauled more to the south, and, coming nearly on our backs, we found little inconvenience from this source. But difficulties of another kind soon gave us warning of the serious nature of the