Page:The open Polar Sea- a narrative of a voyage of discovery towards the North pole, in the schooner "United States" (IA openpolarseanarr1867haye).pdf/361

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notwithstanding,—discovered Grinnell Land, and surveyed two hundred miles of its coast. But the ice is now infinitely worse than it was then; and I am convinced that the difficulties of this journey have now culminated and the crisis has been reached. The men are, as I have before observed, completely exhausted from the continued efforts of the past week, and are disheartened by the contemplation of the little progress that was made as well as by the formidable nature of the hummocks in front, which they realize are becoming more and more difficult to surmount as they penetrate farther and farther into them. Their strength has been giving way under the incessant and extraordinary call upon their energies, at temperatures in which it is difficult to exist even under the most favorable circumstances, each realizing that upon his personal exertions depends the only chance of making any progress, and recognizing that after all their efforts and all their sacrifices the progress made is wholly inadequate to accomplish the object in view. Besides this prostration of the moral sentiments, there is the steady and alarming prostration of the physical forces. One man is incapacitated from work by having his back sprained in lifting; another is rendered useless by having his ancle sprained in falling; the freezing of the fingers and toes of others renders them almost helpless; and the vital energies of the whole party are so lowered by exposure to the cold that they are barely capable of attending to their own immediate necessities, without harboring a thought of exerting themselves to complete a journey to which they can see no termination, and in the very outset of which they feel that their lives are being sacrificed.

It is, therefore, in consideration of the condition of