be compared with
it," he writes. "A rumble, a shriek, a groan, and the crash of a falling
house all combined, might serve to convey an idea of the noise with which
this motion of the ice-floe is accompanied. Great masses from fifteen to
twenty-five feet in height, when up-ended, are sliding along at various
angles of elevation and jam, and between and among them are large and
confused masses of debris, like a marble yard adrift. Occasionally a
stoppage occurs; some piece has caught against or under our floe; there
follows a groaning and crackling, our floe bends and humps up in places
like domes. Crash! The dome splits, another yard of floe edge breaks off,
the pressure is relieved, and on goes again the flowing mass of rumbles,
shrieks, groans, etc., for another spell."

[Illustration: DELONG'S MEN DRAGGING THEIR BOATS OVER THE ICE]

Time and again this nerve-racking experience was encountered. More than
once serious leaks were started in the ship, which had to be met by
working the pumps and building false bulwarks in the hold; but by the
exercise of every art known to sailors, she was kept afloat and tenable
until June 11, 1881, when a fierce and unexpected nip broke her fairly in
two, and she speedily sunk. There followed weeks and months of incessant
and desperate struggling with sledge and boat against the forces of polar
nature. The ship had sunk about 150 miles from what are known as the New
Siberian Islands, for which DeLong then laid his course. The ice was
rugged, covered with soft snow, which masked treacherous pitfalls, and
full of chasms which had to be bridged. Five sleds and three boats were
dragged by almost superhuman exertions, the sick feebly aiding the sturdy
in the work. Imagine the disappointment, and despair of the leader, when,
after a full week of this cruel labor, with provisions ever growing more
scanty, an observation showed him they were actually twenty-eight miles
further away from their destination than when they started! While they
were toiling south, the ice-floe over which they were plodding was
drifting more rapidly north. _Nil desperandum_ must ever be the watchword
of Arctic expeditions, and DeLong, saying nothing to the others of his
discovery, changed slightly the course of his march and labored on. July
19 they reached an island hitherto unknown, which was thereupon named
Bennett Island. A curious feature of the toilsome march across the ice,
was that, though the temperature sel