In this march there was some pretty heavy going. Part of the way was over small old floes, which had been broken up by many seasons of unceasing conflict with the winds and tides. Enclosing these more or less level floes were heavy pressure ridges over which we and the dogs were obliged to climb. Often the driver of a heavily loaded sledge would be forced to lift it by main strength over some obstruction. Those who have pictured us sitting comfortably on our sledges, riding over hundreds of miles of ice smooth as a skating pond, should have seen us lifting and tugging at our five-hundred-pound sledges, adding our own strength to that of our dogs.
The day was hazy, and the air was full of frost, which, clinging to our eyelashes, almost cemented them together. Sometimes, in opening my mouth to shout an order to the Eskimos, a sudden twinge would cut short my words—my mustache having frozen to my stubble beard.
This fifteen mile march put us beyond the Norwegian record (86° 13´ 6´´; see Nansen's "Farthest North," Vol. 2, page 170) and fifteen days ahead of that record. My leading sledge found both Bartlett and Henson in camp; but they were off again, pioneering the trail, before I, bringing up the rear as usual, came in. Egingwah's sledge had been damaged during this march, and as our loads could now be carried on four sledges, owing to what we had eaten along the way, we broke up Marvin's damaged sledge and used the material in it for repairing the other four. As Marvin and two Eskimos were to turn back from the next camp, I left here his supplies for the return and part of his equipment, in order to save unnecessary transportation out and back. The time employed in mending the sledges and shifting the loads cut into our hours of sleep, and after a short rest of three hours we were again under way, with four sledges and teams of ten dogs each.
The next march was a good one. Bartlett had responded like a thoroughbred to my urging. Favored by good going, he reeled off full twenty miles, notwithstanding a snowstorm part of the time, which made it hard to see. The temperature, which varied from 16° to 30° below zero, indicated that there was more or less open water to the west, from which direction the wind came. During this march we crossed several leads covered with young ice, treacherous under the recently fallen snow. Along the course of one of these leads we saw the fresh track of a polar bear going west, over two hundred miles from land.
REPAIRING SLEDGES IN CAMP
At half-past ten on the morning of the 25th I came upon Bartlett and Henson with their men, all in camp, in accordance with my instructions to wait for me at the end of their fifth march. I turned them all out, and every one jumped in to repair the sledges, redistribute the loads, weed out the least efficient dogs, and rearrange the Eskimos in the remaining divisions.
While this work was going on, Marvin, favored by clear weather, took another meridian observation for latitude and obtained 86° 38´. This placed us, as I expected, beyond the Italian record, and showed that in our last three marches we had covered a distance of fifty minutes of latitude, an average of sixteen and two-thirds miles per march. We were thirty-two days ahead of the Italian record in time.
I was doubly glad of the result of the observations, not only for the sake of Marvin, whose services had been invaluable and who deserved the privilege of claiming a higher northing than Nansen and Abruzzi, but also for the honor of Cornell University, to the faculty of which he belonged, and two of whose alumni and patrons had been generous contributors to the Peary Arctic Club. I had hoped that Marvin would be able to make a sounding at his farthest north, but there was no young ice near the camp through which a hole could be made.