The Romance of Polar Exploration / Interesting Descriptions of Arctic and Antarctic Adventure from the Earliest Time to the Voyage of the "Discovery"

by G. Firth Scott

ESKIMO ARMS AND TOOLS.

(a) Bow with Strings and Arrows. (b) Knives with Walrus Handles. (c) Lance for Walrus and Bear. (d) Harpoon for Sealing. (e) Stone Axe with Bone Handle. (f) Snow Knife with Walrus Teeth.

This was "the woman," a mass of meteoric iron weighing, as was subsequently proved, three tons. Originally it was said to have been twice that size, the removal of the "head" having considerably reduced it, while in addition there had been generations of Eskimo chipping it for knives and spear tips. The amount of iron which had been broken from it in this way was shown by the pile of stones lying around it. The Eskimo maintained that these stones had all been brought there by the men who came for iron; but if that were true, the Saviksoah must have been chipped for ages, judging by the accumulation of stones.

About thirty yards away from the "woman" there lay the "dog," a smaller mass weighing only half a ton. The "man" was some miles away, as became his dignity and size, for he was found to be a mighty mass, one hundred tons in weight, rugged in form, and so intractable when attempts were made to move him, that his removal forms a tale so full of romance as almost to suggest fiction.

As it was late in the season when Peary's ship, the Kite, arrived, there was only time to remove the "woman" and the "dog," the "man" being located but untouched pending the return of another season. The removal of the "dog" did not offer any great difficulty, and the "woman" was levered out of the ground and conveyed to the ship on rollers without giving more than the ordinary amount of trouble experienced in handling heavy masses of inert material. Not so the "man."

With the two smaller meteorites safely conveyed to New York, a return of the Kite to Melville Island to effect the removal of the "man" was arranged. Accompanied by a party of scientists and an engineer, Peary sailed north the following year and immediately attacked the problem of excavating and placing on the Kite the largest of the three masses. The exact size was not at the time known, but as soon as the work of excavation commenced it was obvious that the task in hand was much greater than was anticipated. The portion first revealed was found to be four feet in length, two feet high, and one and a half feet broad. This, however, was merely a fin-like excrescence on the main mass, which, as the excavation proceeded, was shown to measure twelve feet long by eight feet in width, on the upper face, while a trench three feet round it did not reach to the base. It was then realised that the task of transferring such a huge mass from the place where it lay in the ground to the ship was one requiring great engineering skill and the use of appliances of much greater strength than the Kite had brought with her. The mass was about three hundred yards from high-water mark and eighty feet above it. A shelf of rock ran out into the sea immediately below the spot where the meteorite reposed, and the water was sufficiently deep alongside the shelf to make it a natural pier or wharf where the ship could make fast for the mass to be loaded on board, when it had been moved from its resting-place and conveyed to the edge of the sea. While the rocky pier was all that could be desired from the point of view of loading, it was entirely unprotected from the ice which, in the early approach of winter, rapidly accumulated in the bay. It was clear, therefore, that the removal and shipment of the mass must be carried out with rapidity if all risk of disaster were to be avoided.

By the time the mass had been excavated and its full dimensions were revealed, the season was too far advanced for any serious attempt being made to get it on board the ship. It was estimated to weigh not less than one hundred tons, while the rugged and angular form it presented made it an extremely difficult object to handle. All the time available was devoted to making the preliminary arrangements for the definite work of removal in the following season, and, as soon as the ice began to gather in the bay, the Kite sailed back to the south. The meteorite being so much larger than was anticipated, a larger vessel than the Kite was required to convey it to New York; it was also necessary to have still heavier appliances wherewith to handle it.

The following year, on board the Hope, Peary returned to the attack and set to work to carry off his treasure. With the aid of the male members of the Eskimo tribe, in addition to the men he had with him and the crew of the steamer, the plan of operations was commenced. As Peary wrote, in describing the experience: "The first thing to be done was to tear the heavenly visitor from its frozen bed of centuries, and, as it rose inch by inch under the resistless lift of the hydraulic jacks, gradually displaying its ponderous sides, it grew upon us as Niagara grows upon the observer, and there was not one of us unimpressed by the enormousness of this lump of metal. The expressions of the Eskimo about the Saviksoah (Great Iron) were low but earnest, and it, and the other wonderful 'Great Irons' (the jacks) which could tear it from its bed, awed them to the utmost."

When it was out of the nest where it had rested so long, the method adopted was to tilt it up from one side, by means of the jacks and steel cables, until it stood on end, and then to force it over until its own weight made it fall forward. The spectacle, as it fell, brought home to the onlookers the enormous power it represented. As it slowly moved, the stones lying immediately under it were ground into powder, and, as it lurched forward, the hard masses of rock were rent and split, while a shower of sparks burst from the meteorite itself wherever it came in contact with a more than usually hard piece of rock. The irregularities in its form added to the difficulties, for it was almost impossible to secure firm holds for the jacks, and anything approaching a slip on the part of the mass was tantamount to death or destruction to any one within reach of it. Day and night the struggle went on, the mass seeming to resist every inch of the way, settling itself into awkward corners and crevices; cutting its way, as it fell, through the baulks of timber set to form a bed for it; bending and notching steel rails, when they were substituted for the wood; and generally giving as much trouble as it was possible to give, almost to the extent of suggesting conscious design. Hard as every one worked to win, the meteorite proved too much for them, and it was only conveyed as far as the rocky pier where the ship lay ready to take it on board when the ice came drifting into the bay, and for another winter the meteorite had to be left in its frozen habitat.