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 4.3 Standard Approach: The ID3 Algorithm
4.3.1 A Worked Example: Predicting Vegetation Distributions
4.4 Extensions and Variations
4.4.1 Alternative Feature Selection and Impurity Metrics
4.4.2 Handling Continuous Descriptive Features
4.4.3 Predicting Continuous Targets
4.4.4 Tree Pruning
4.4.5 Model Ensembles
4.5 Summary
4.6 Further Reading
4.7 Exercises

5 Similarity-based Learning
5.1 Big Idea
5.2 Fundamentals
5.2.1 Feature Space
5.2.2 Measuring Similarity Using Distance Metrics
5.3 Standard Approach: The Nearest Neighbor Algorithm
5.3.1 A Worked Example
5.4 Extensions and Variations
5.4.1 Handling Noisy Data
5.4.2 Efficient Memory Search
5.4.3 Data Normalization
5.4.4 Predicting Continuous Targets
5.4.5 Other Measures of Similarity
5.4.6 Feature Selection
5.5 Summary
5.6 Further Reading
5.7 Epilogue
5.8 Exercises

6 Probability-based Learning
6.1 Big Idea
6.2 Fundamentals
6.2.1 Bayes’ Theorem
6.2.2 Bayesian Prediction
6.2.3 Conditional Independence and Factorization
6.3 Standard Approach: The Naive Bayes Model
6.3.1 A Worked Example

8
 6.4 Extensions and Variations
6.4.1 Smoothing
6.4.2 Continuous Features: Probability Density Functions
6.4.3 Continuous Features: Binning
6.4.4 Bayesian Networks
6.5 Summary
6.6 Further Reading
6.7 Exercises

7 Error-based Learning
7.1 Big Idea
7.2 Fundamentals
7.2.1 Simple Linear Regression
7.2.2 Measuring Error
7.2.3 Error Surfaces
7.3 Standard Approach: Multivariable Linear Regression with Gradient Descent
7.3.1 Multivariable Linear Regression
7.3.2 Gradient Descent
7.3.3 Choosing Learning Rates and Initial Weights
7.3.4 A Worked Example
7.4 Extensions and Variations
7.4.1 Interpreting Multivariable Linear Regression Models
7.4.2 Setting the Learning Rate Using Weight Decay
7.4.3 Handling Categorical Descriptive Features
7.4.4 Handling Categorical Target Features: Logistic Regression
7.4.5 Modeling Non-linear Relationships
7.4.6 Multinomial Logistic Regression
7.4.7 Support Vector Machines
7.5 Summary
7.6 Further Reading
7.7 Exercises

8 Evaluation
8.1 Big Idea
8.2 Fundamentals
8.3 Standard Approach: Misclassification Rate on a Hold-out Test Set
8.4 Extensions and Variations
8.4.1 Designing Evaluation Experiments
8.4.2 Performance Measures: Categorical Targets

9
 8.4.3 Performance Measures: Prediction Scores
8.4.4 Performance Measures: Multinomial Targets
8.4.5 Performance Measures: Continuous Targets
8.4.6 Evaluating Models after Deployment
8.5 Summary
8.6 Further Reading
8.7 Exercises

9 Case Study: Customer Churn

9.1 Business Understanding
9.2 Data Understanding
9.3 Data Preparation
9.4 Modeling
9.5 Evaluation
9.6 Deployment

10 Case Study: Galaxy Classification

10.1 Business Understanding
10.1.1 Situational Fluency
10.2 Data Understanding
10.3 Data Preparation
10.4 Modeling
10.4.1 Baseline Models
10.4.2 Feature Selection
10.4.3 The 5-level Model
10.5 Evaluation
10.6 Deployment

11 The Art of Machine Learning for Predictive Data Analytics

11.1 Different Perspectives on Prediction Models
11.2 Choosing a Machine Learning Approach
11.2.1 Matching Machine Learning Approaches to Projects
11.2.2 Matching Machine Learning Approaches to Data
11.3 Your Next Steps

A Descriptive Statistics and Data Visualization for Machine Learning

A.1 Descriptive Statistics for Continuous Features
A.1.1 Central Tendency
A.1.2 Variation

10
 A.2 Descriptive Statistics for Categorical Features
A.3 Populations and Samples
A.4 Data Visualization
A.4.1 Bar Plots
A.4.2 Histograms
A.4.3 Box Plots

B Introduction to Probability for Machine Learning

B.1 Probability Basics
B.2 Probability Distributions and Summing Out
B.3 Some Useful Probability Rules
B.4 Summary

C Differentiation Techniques for Machine Learning

C.1 Derivatives of Continuous Functions
C.2 The Chain Rule
C.3 Partial Derivatives

Bibliography
List of Figures
List of Tables
Index

11
Preface

In writing this book our target was to deliver an accessible, introductory text on the
fundamentals of machine learning, and the ways that machine learning is used in practice
to solve predictive data analytics problems in business, science, and other organizational
contexts. As such, the book goes beyond the standard topics covered in machine learning
books and also covers the lifecycle of a predictive analytics project, data preparation, feature
design, and model deployment.
The book is intended for use on machine learning, data mining, data analytics, or
artificial intelligence modules on undergraduate and post-graduate computer science,
natural and social science, engineering, and business courses. The fact that the book
provides case studies illustrating the application of machine learning within the industry
context of data analytics also makes it a suitable text for practitioners looking for an
introduction to the field and as a text book for industry training courses in these areas.
The design of the book is informed by our many years of experience in teaching
machine learning, and the approach and material in the book has been developed and road-
tested in the classroom. In writing this book we have adopted the following guiding
principles to make the material accessible:
1. Explain the most important and popular algorithms clearly, rather than overview the
full breadth of machine learning. As teachers we believe that giving a student deep
knowledge of the core concepts underpinning a field provides them with a solid basis
from which they can explore the field themselves. This sharper focus allows us to
spend more time introducing, explaining, illustrating and contextualizing the
algorithms that are fundamental to the field, and their uses.
2. Informally explain what an algorithm is trying to do before presenting the technical
formal description of how it does it. Providing this informal introduction to each
topic gives students a solid basis from which to attack the more technical material.
Our experience with teaching this material to mixed audiences of undergraduates,
post-graduates and professionals has shown that these informal introductions enable
students to easily access the topic.
3. Provide complete worked examples. In this book we have presented complete
workings for all examples, because this enables the reader to check their
understanding in detail.

12
Structure of the Book
When teaching a technical topic, it is important to show the application of the concepts
discussed to real-life problems. For this reason, we present machine learning within the
context of predictive data analytics, an important and growing industry application of
machine learning. The link between machine learning and data analytics runs through
every chapter in the book. In Chapter 1 we introduce machine learning and explain the role
it has within a standard data analytics project lifecycle. In Chapter 2 we provide a
framework for designing and constructing a predictive analytics solution, based on machine
learning, that meets a business need. All machine-learning algorithms assume a dataset is
available for training, and in Chapter 3 we explain how to design, construct, and quality
check a dataset before using it to a build prediction model.
Chapters 4, 5, 6, and 7 are the main machine learning chapters in the book. Each of
these chapters presents a different approach to machine learning: Chapter 4, learning
through information gathering; Chapter 5, learning through analogy; Chapter 6, learning
by predicting probable outcomes; and Chapter 7, learning by searching for solutions that
minimize error. All of these chapters follow the same two part structure
Part 1 presents an informal introduction to the material presented in the chapter,
followed by a detailed explanation of the fundamental technical concepts required to
understand the material, and then a standard machine learning algorithm used in
that learning approach is presented, along with a detailed worked example.
Part 2 of each chapter explains different ways that the standard algorithm can be
extended and well-known variations on the algorithm.

The motivation for structuring these technical chapters in two parts is that it provides a
natural break in the chapter material. As a result, a topic can be included in a course by just
covering Part 1 of a chapter (‘Big Idea’, fundamentals, standard algorithm and worked
example); and then—time permitting—the coverage of the topic can be extended to some
or all of the material in Part 2. Chapter 8 explains how to evaluate the performance of
prediction models, and presents a range of different evaluation metrics. This chapter also
adopts the two part structure of standard approach followed by extensions and variations.
Throughout these technical chapters the link to the broader predictive analytics context is
maintained through detailed and complete real-world examples, along with references to
the datasets and/or papers that the examples are based on.
The link between the broader business context and machine learning is most clearly
seen in the case studies presented in Chapters 9 (predicting customer churn) and 10 (galaxy
classification). In particular, these case studies highlight how a range of issues and tasks
beyond model building—such as business understanding, problem definition, data
gathering and preparation, and communication of insight—are crucial to the success of a
predictive analytics project. Finally, Chapter 11 discusses a range of fundamental topics in
machine learning and also highlights that the selection of an appropriate machine learning
approach for a given task involves factors beyond model accuracy—we must also match the
characteristics of the model to the needs of the business.

13
How to Use this Book
Through our years of teaching this material we have developed an understanding of what is
a reasonable amount of material to cover in a one-semester introductory module and on
two-semester more advanced modules. To facilitate the use of the book in these different
contexts, the book has been designed to be modular—with very few dependencies between
chapters. As a result, a lecturer using this book can plan their course by simply selecting the
sections of the book they wish to cover and not worry about the dependencies between the
sections. When presented in class, the material in Chapters 1, 2, 9, 10 and 11 typically take
two to three lecture hours to cover; and the material in Chapters 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 normally
take four to six lecture hours to cover.
In Table 1 we have listed a number of suggested course plans targeting different
contexts. All of these courses include Chapter 1 (Machine Learning for Predictive Data
Analytics) and Chapter 11 (The Art of Machine Learning for Predictive Data Analytics).
The first course listed (M.L. short deep) is designed to be a one-semester machine learning
course with a focus on giving the students a deep understanding of two approaches to
machine learning, along with an understanding of the correct methodology to use when
evaluating a machine learning model. In our suggested course we have chosen to cover all of
Chapters 4 (Information-based Learning) and 7 (Error-based Learning). However, Chapter
5 (Similarity-based Learning) and/or 6 (Probability-based Learning) could be used instead.
The M.L. short deep is also an ideal course plan for a short (1 week) professional training
course. The second course (M.L. short broad) is another one-semester machine learning
course. Here, however, the focus is on covering a range of machine learning approaches
and, again, evaluation is covered in detail. For a longer two-semester machine learning
course (M.L. long) we suggest covering data preparation (Section 3.6), all the machine
learning chapters, and the evaluation chapter.
There are contexts, however, where the focus of a course is not primarily on machine
learning. We also present to course paths that focus on the context of predictive data
analytics. The course P.D.A short defines a one-semester course. This course gives students
an introduction to predictive data analytics, a solid understanding of how machine learning
solutions should be designed to meet a business need, insight into how prediction models
work and should be evaluated, and includes one of the case studies. The P.D.A short is also
an ideal course plan for a short (1 week) professional training course. If there is more time
available then P.D.A long expands on the P.D.A. short course so that students gain a deeper
and broader understanding of machine learning, and also includes the second case study.

14
Online Resources
The website:

www.machinelearningbook.com

provides access to a wide range of material that supports the book. This material includes:
lecture slides, the complete set of images used in the book, video lectures based on the
book, code samples, and an errata list (hopefully short). Worked solutions for all end of
chapter exercises are available. For questions that are not marked with an ✻ a solutions
manual is available from the book website. Solutions for those questions that are marked
with an ✻ are contained in an instructors manual available from MIT Press on request.

15
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now to explore a rich
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exciting offers!
Acknowledgements
We knew when we began writing this book that it would take a huge amount of work to
complete. We underestimated, however, the amount of support we would need and receive
from other people. We are delighted to take this opportunity to acknowledge these
contributions to the book. We would like to thank our colleagues and students for the help
and patience they extended to us over the last few years. We would also like to thank the
staff at MIT Press, particularly Marie Lufkin Lee, and our copy editor Melanie Mallon. We
are also very grateful to the two anonymous reviewers who provided insightful and helpful
comments on an early draft of the manuscript. Each of us has also been fortunate to have
the support of close friends and family which was invaluable in completing the book.
John would like to thank Robert Ross, Simon Dobnik, Josef van Genabith, Alan Mc
Donnell, Lorraine Byrne, and all his friends from basketball. He would also like to thank
his parents (John and Betty) and his sisters, without their support he would not have gotten
past long-division and basic spelling. Finally, he would like to acknowledge and thank
Aphra, this book would not have been started without her inspiration and would not have
been completed without her patience.
Brian would like to thank his parents (Liam and Roisín) and family for all of their
support, and acknowledge Pádraig Cunningham and Sarah Jane Delany who opened his
eyes to machine learning.
Aoife would like to thank her parents (Michael and Mairead) and family, and all of the
people who have supported her through her career—especially the much valued customers
of The Analytics Store who give her data to play with!

Table 1
Suggested course syllabi.

16
17
Notation

In this section we provide a short overview of the technical notation used throughout this
book.

18
Notational Conventions
Throughout this book we discuss the use of machine learning algorithms to train prediction
models based on datasets. The following list explains the notation used to refer to different
elements in a dataset. Figure 1[xix] illustrates the key notation using a simple sample dataset.

Figure 1
How the notation used in the book relates to the elements of a dataset.

19
Datasets
The symbol denotes a dataset.
A dataset is composed of n instances, (d1, t1) to (dn, tn), where d is a set of m
descriptive features and t is a target feature.
A subset of a dataset is denoted using the symbol with a subscript to indicate the
definition of the subset. For example, f=l represents the subset of instances from the
dataset where the feature f has the value l.

20
Vectors of Features
Lowercase boldface letters refer to a vector of features. For example, d denotes a
vector of descriptive features for an instance in a dataset, and q denotes a vector of
descriptive features in a query.

21
Instances
Subscripts are used to index into a list of instances.
xi refers to the ith instance in a dataset.
di refers to the descriptive features of the ith instance in a dataset.

22
Individual Features
Lowercase letters represent a single feature (e.g., f, a, b, c …).
Square brackets [] are used to index into a vector of features (e.g., d [j] denotes the
value of the jth feature in the vector d).
t represents the target feature.

23
Individual Features in a Particular Instance
di [j] denotes the value of the jth descriptive feature of the ith instance in a dataset.
ai refers to the value for feature a of the ith instance in a dataset.
ti refers to the value of the target feature of the ith instance in a dataset

24
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Indexes
Typically i is used to index instances in a dataset, and j is used to index features in a
vector.

25
Models
We use to refer to a model.
w refers to a model parameterized by a parameter vector w.
w(d) refers to the output of a model parameterized by parameters w for
descriptive features d.

26
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 “Bear!” and instantly out of their sleeping bags popped Alexey and
Aneguin, eager to get the first bear sighted since our ship sank. We
heard a couple of shots, and our mouths began to water. Um-m!
Bear steaks for dinner! But it was all wasted for soon the two Indians
were back, empty-handed and disgusted. The bear had been in such
excellent trim that they had had to fire at a thousand yards on a
rapidly reciprocating target as that bear humped himself over the ice,
and they had of course missed. However, it didn’t matter much,
claimed Alexey, as the bear was only a dirty brown one and not very
big, a remark which prompted the captain to ask innocently,
“Sour grapes, Alexey?” but Alexey only looked at him puzzled.
Grapes, sour or otherwise, never grew in his latitudes, so I’m afraid
he missed the point. Quieting our disappointed stomachs as best we
could, once more we turned in. But we got the bear. In the late
afternoon, Seaman Görtz, who had the watch the while the rest of us
slept, spotted him once again. This time Görtz kept his mouth shut
while the bear advanced to within five hundred yards of our camp,
and then, unnoticed, our lookout managed to crawl within a hundred
yards of him to plant two bullets in that bear where they did the most
good!
Now that we had him, he turned out to be a very fine bear indeed,
even Alexey admitting that ungrudgingly, and soon the air over that
floe was filled with an appetizing aroma of sizzling bear steaks that
fairly intoxicated us. We envied no man on earth his evening meal
that night as, disdaining pemmican, we gorged ourselves on bear.
But we needed it. When we broke camp and started for the island
ahead, we found ourselves with nothing but moving ice over which to
work our sledges.
For two days, mostly in fog, we fought our way toward that island,
with the floes breaking under us, sliding away from us, and the whole
pack alive around us. A gale blew up, and on the off side of the
hummocks about us, a bad surf broke and kept us drenched. Finally
on the third day, we found ourselves opposite the dimly visible
western tip of the island, with nothing but a forlorn chance left of ever
making the solid ground that so desperately we ached to rest
ourselves on. With but a few hundred yards remaining before the
pack finally drifted us past it forever, we sighted ahead a long floe of
heavy blue ice extending in toward the land, with only a few
openings between the floe and ours. We bridged the gaps, bounced
our sledges and boats over, and made good a mile and a half across
that floe. There we found more broken ice and water, which with
difficulty we started to cross in the fog by passing a line to a floe
beyond and using a smaller cake as a ferryboat, when suddenly the
fog lifted and there over our heads, some 2500 feet high, towered a
huge cliff, and sweeping past it as in a millrace were the floes on
which we rode!
We finished our ferry, ending on a moderate-sized floe drifting
rapidly past the fixed ice piled up at the base of the cliff, with the
southwest cape, our last slim chance to make the land, not far off.
For over two weeks we had dragged and struggled toward that
island; now in despair we found ourselves being helplessly swept by
it!
Our little floe, covered with sledges, men and dogs, whirled and
eddied in the race, spinning crazily, and threatening to break up any
moment, when we noted that if only it should make the next spin in
the right direction, it might touch a corner against the ice fringing the
land. We waited breathlessly. It did!
“Away, Chipp!” shouted De Long, and in an instant our sledges
started to move off that spinning floe. The first got away perfectly, the
second nearly went overboard, the third sledge shot into the sea,
carrying Cole with it, and the fourth was only saved by Erichsen who,
with superhuman strength, shoved an ice cake in for a bridge. We
couldn’t get the boat sledges over; our floe was already starting to
crack up. Working frenziedly as it broke, the few of us left on the floe
pushed the boats, their sledges still under them, off into the water
and the men already landed started to haul the boats over to them,
when away drifted the last remnant of that ice cake, carrying with it
De Long, Iversen, Aneguin and me, together with six dogs! For a few
minutes we were in a bad way, threatening to drift clear of the island
on that tiny ice cake with no food, except perhaps the dogs; while the
men ashore ran wildly along the ice-foot, unable to help us in any
manner.
 Fortunately for us, a little further along a swirl drove our floe in
against a grounded berg for a second and dogs and all, we made a
wild leap for it; successfully too, for only three of us landed in the
water. Aneguin, the Indian, proved the best broad jumper. He landed
safely enough on the berg and dragged the rest of us up and out.
Soon reunited again, behind our dripping captain the entire ship’s
company straggled across the ice-foot to solid ground (the steep
face of the cliff), where clinging to the precipice with one hand, the
captain for the third time on our voyage displayed his silken banner,
proudly rammed its staff for a moment into the soil, and exclaimed,
“Men, this is newly discovered land. I therefore take possession of
it in the name of the President of the United States, and name it,
“Bennett Island!”
The men, most of them (except the five who had landed with me
on Henrietta Island) with their feet on solid ground for the first time in
two years, cheered lustily. Jack Cole then sang out,
“All hands, now. Three cheers fer Cap’n De Long!” in which all
again joined except Collins and (for the first time in his life managing
to keep his mouth shut when anybody gave him an order) Newcomb.
But our happy captain, not noticing that, turned to his executive
officer and jocularly remarked,
“We’ve been a long time afloat, Mr. Chipp. You may now give the
men all the shore leave they wish on American soil!”
It was July 28th when we landed; we stayed a week on Bennett
Island, resting mainly, while Nindemann and Sweetman worked
strenuously repairing our boats. All were badly damaged and
unseaworthy from the pounding they had received in the pack. The
whaleboat especially, our longest boat, had suffered severely and
every plank in its stern was sprung wide open. Sweetman did the
best he could in hurrying repairs, pouring grease into the leaking
seams and refastening planks, but it was a slow job nevertheless.
While this was going on, the men explored Bennett Island, which
we found to be of considerable extent (we never got to its northwest
cape), probably thirty miles long and over ten miles wide, very
mountainous, with many glaciers, running streams, no game we ever
saw, and thousands of birds nesting on the cliffs. This island, at least
three times the size of Henrietta Island, nicely finished off the honors
due the Bennett family, for we now had one each for Mr. Bennett, his
sister, and his mother.
Geologically, we found the island interesting. I discovered a thick
vein of bituminous coal, and Dr. Ambler found many deposits of
amethyst crystals, but what took our fancy most were the birds. We
knocked down innumerable murres with stones, which, fried in bear’s
grease, we ate with great relish. But they proved too much for Dr.
Ambler’s stomach, laying him in his tent for over a day.
On August 4th, with the boats all repaired, we made ready to
leave. To the southward of Bennett Island, the pack looked to us
badly broken up with enough large water openings to make it seem
that thereafter we could proceed mostly in the boats among drifting
floes, keeping the sledges for use when required. To this end, since
the dogs would be less necessary and feeding them on our
pemmican an unwarranted further drain on our stores, De Long
ordered ten broken-down dogs to be shot to avoid their suffering
should we abandon them, keeping only the twelve best for future
sledging, including husky Snoozer who was by now quite the
captain’s pet.
By sledge over the pack we had travelled almost exactly a
hundred miles in a straight line from where the Jeannette had sunk
to Bennett Island, though over the winding track as we actually
crossed the drifting ice we had dragged our sledges more than a
hundred and eighty miles and in so doing had ourselves tramped far
beyond a thousand miles on foot. We prepared hopefully to rely from
then on mainly on our boats, and for this purpose the captain
rearranged the parties, breaking up the sledge and tent groups in
which we previously had journeyed.
Into the first cutter with himself he took a total of thirteen—Dr.
Ambler, Mr. Collins, Nindemann, Erichsen, Kaack, Boyd, Alexey,
Lee, Noros, Dressler, Görtz and Iversen.
 Into the second cutter (a smaller boat) under Lieutenant Chipp’s
command, he put ten—Mr. Dunbar, Sweetman, Sharvell, Kuehne,
Starr, Manson (later transferred to my boat), Warren, Johnson, and
Ah Sam (who later to lighten still further the second cutter, was
transferred to De Long’s boat).
Into the whaleboat, of which he gave me the command, also went
ten—Lieutenant Danenhower, Mr. Newcomb, Cole, Bartlett, Aneguin,
Wilson, Lauterbach, Leach, and Tong Sing.
Thus we made ready, with De Long commanding the largest and
roomiest boat, Chipp commanding the smallest boat, and me in
command of the whaleboat, considerably our longest craft though
not our greatest in carrying capacity. And promptly there flared up in
the Arctic an echo of that Line and Staff officer controversy agitating
our Navy at home. (At home, it lasted until the Spanish War showed
that we engineers were as important in winning battles as deck
officers, and maybe more so.)
I, as an engineer officer, belonged to the Staff; Danenhower, as a
deck officer, belonged to the Line, which alone maintained the claim
to actual command of vessels afloat. A whaleboat was not much of a
vessel, but nevertheless Danenhower, when he heard of the
assignments, promptly informed me he was going to protest to the
captain.
“Go ahead, Dan,” I said. “That’s perfectly all right with me.” So the
navigator went to the captain to object to a staff officer being given
command while he, a line officer, was put under my orders. In that
congested camp on Bennett Island, he didn’t have far to go to find
the skipper.
“Captain,” asked Dan, “what’s my status in the whaleboat?”
“You are on the sicklist, sir,” replied De Long.
“Who has command of the boat?” persisted Dan.
“Mr. Melville, under my general command.”
“And in case of a separation of the boats?” questioned the
navigator. “Suppose we lose you?”
 “In that case,” said the captain, “Mr. Melville has my written orders
to command that boat and what to do with her.”
“Am I under his orders?”
“Yes, so far as it may be necessary for you to receive orders from
him.”
“But that puts me under the orders of a staff officer!” objected Dan
strenuously.
“Well, you’re unfit to take command of the boat yourself,” pointed
out the skipper. “You can’t see, Mr. Danenhower. I can’t put you on
duty now. So long as you remain on the sicklist, you will be assigned
to no military control whatever.”
“Why can’t I be put in a boat with a line officer, then?” asked Dan,
the idea of having to report to a staff officer rankling badly.
“Because I have no line officer left to put in that boat with you, and
because I have seen fit so to distribute our party. I want one line
officer in each boat. In an emergency, Mr. Melville may wish to have
your advice on matters of seamanship.”
“Well then,” replied Danenhower vehemently, “I remonstrate
against being kept on the sicklist.”
“But you’re sick and that’s nonsensical,” said De Long curtly.
“Why, sir, haven’t I the right to remonstrate?”
“You have, and I’ve heard you, and your remonstrance has no
effect,” replied the captain bluntly. “I’ve had the anxiety of your care
and preservation for two years and your coming to me on these
points now is simply an annoyance. I will not assign you to duty till
you’re fit for it, and that will be when the doctor discharges you from
the sicklist. I will not put other people’s lives in jeopardy by
committing them to your charge, and I consider your urging me to do
so is very un-officer-like conduct.”
Taken aback at this barbed comment on his complaint,
Danenhower asked hesitantly,
“Am I to take that as a private reprimand?”
 “You can take it any way you please, Mr. Danenhower,” concluded
the irritated De Long, walking away to supervise the loading of the
first cutter, leaving the crestfallen navigator no alternative but to
come back to join me in the whaleboat.
“Don’t take it so hard, Dan,” I suggested. “Too bad about your
eyes, of course, but it can’t be helped now. We’ve always been the
best of friends and we’re not going to let this change things. As long
as you’re in the whaleboat, you can count on me, old man, not to say
or do anything that’ll hurt your feelings as an officer. Hop in, now;
we’re shoving off!”
Already delayed two days by bad weather, on August 6th we got
away from Bennett Island, with intense satisfaction, though the wind
had died away, being able to get underway in our boats under oars,
carrying the sledges and our twelve remaining dogs. The boats, of
course, packed with men, food, records, sledges, and dogs, were
heavily overloaded and in no condition to stand rough weather, but
we had smooth water and we made two miles before bringing up
against a large ice island. Here we lost most of our dogs, who not
liking water anyway, and objecting still more to the unavoidable
mauling they were getting in the crowded boats from the swinging
oars, promptly deserted the moment they saw ice again, by leaping
out on the floe, and we were unable to catch them. We worked
around the ice pack in the boats, by evening getting to its southern
side, where we camped on the ice, with five miles between us and
Bennett Island, a good day’s work and a heaven-sent relief from
sledging.
The weather was startlingly clear. Looking back, we got a
marvelous view of the island. When we had first reached it in late
July, its appearance was quite summery with mossy slopes and
running streams, but now winter had hit it with a vengeance.
Everything on it was snow-covered and the streams were freezing.
We regarded it with foreboding. The first week of August and the
brief Arctic summer was fading away, with four hundred miles before
us still to go on our journey to the Lena Delta. We must hurry, or the
open leads we now had for the boats would all soon freeze over.
 For two weeks we stood on to the southwest, boating and
sledging. With luck in pushing away the ice with boathooks, we might
make five or six miles between broken floes before we met a pack
we could not get through afloat, when it was a case of unload the
boats, mount them on their sledges, and drag across the ice. By the
second day of this, we were down to two dogs, Snoozer and
Kasmatka, all the rest having deserted, but these two special
favorites were kept tied and so prevented from decamping. The boat
work, whether under sail or oars, was hard labor. There was no open
sea, merely leads in the open pack, and over most of these leads,
the weather was now cold enough to freeze ice a quarter of an inch
thick over night. We found we could not row through this, so the
leading boat, usually the first cutter, had to break a way, and all day
long men were poised in her bows with boathooks and oars breaking
up the ice ahead. And we had before us several hundred miles of
this!
The weather was bad, mostly fog, snow squalls, and some gales,
but because of the vast amount of floating ice, there was no room for
a heavy sea to kick up, and when a moderate sea rose, we always
hauled out on the nearest floe. And so camping on the ice at night,
hauling out for dinner, and making what we could under sail or oars
in between when we were not sledging over the pack, we stood on to
the southwest for the New Siberian Islands. At the end of one week’s
journeying, the snowfalls became frequent and heavy, troubling us
greatly, though they did provide us with good drinking water which
was an improvement over the semi-salted snow we got on the main
pack. By now it was the middle of August, sixty days since we had
left the Jeannette, and the expiration of the period for which originally
we had provided food. We were hundreds of miles from our
destination, and our food was getting low. Of course had it not been
for our going on short rations soon after our start, our position would
now be precarious, since the few seals, birds, and the solitary bear
we got, while luxurious breaks in our menu so long as they lasted
(which wasn’t long) meant little in the way of quantity.
By August 16th, nine days underway from Bennett Island, we had
made only forty miles—not very encouraging. Next day we did better
—ten miles under sail with only one break, but the day after, it was
once more all pulling with the oars and smashing ice ahead and slow
work again. But on August 19th we saw so much open water that we
joyfully imagined we were near the open sea at last. We loosed our
sails and until noon went swiftly onward with the intention of getting
dinner in our boats for the first time without hauling out on the ice,
and then continuing on all night also. Suddenly astern of us we saw
Chipp’s boat hastily douse sail, run in against a floe, and promptly
start to unload.
There was nothing for the rest of us (cursing fluently at the delay)
to do except to round to and secure to the ice till Chipp came up, and
long before he had managed that, the ice came down on us from all
sides before a northeast wind, so that shortly it looked as if there
was nothing but ice in the world. Chipp finally sledged his boat over
the pack to join us and we learned the ice had closed on him
suddenly, stove a bad hole in his port bow, and he had to haul out
hurriedly to keep from sinking.
By three p.m., Chipp had his boat repaired, using a piece of
pemmican can for a patch, and we were again ready. Each boat had
its sledge, a heavy oaken affair, slung athwartships across the
gunwales just forward of the mast. Abaft that, the boats were
jammed with men and supplies, the result being that they were both
badly overloaded and topheavy.
With great difficulty we poled our way through ice drifts packed
about us to more open water and made sail again before a
freshening breeze, De Long in the first cutter leading, my whaleboat
in the middle, and Chipp with the second cutter astern of all. We felt
we must be nearing the northerly coasts of the New Siberian Islands,
which we hoped to sight any moment and perhaps even reach by
night.
The breeze grew stronger and the sea started to kick up. My
whaleboat began to roll badly, taking in water over the gunwales,
and at the tiller I found it difficult to hold her steady on the course,
though with some bailing we got along fairly well, and so it seemed
to me did the first cutter ahead. But the second cutter astern, the
shortest boat of the three, was behaving very badly in that sea—
rolling heavily, sticking her nose into the waves instead of rising to
them, and evidently making considerable water. Hauling away a little
on my quarter and drawing up so he could hail the captain ahead,
Chipp bellowed down the wind,
“Captain! I’ve either got to haul out on the ice or heave overboard
this sledge! If I don’t, I’ll swamp!”
De Long decided to haul out. He waved to Chipp and me (he
being to leeward, we couldn’t hear him) indicating that we were to
haul out on a floe nearby on our lee side. The near side of that floe,
its windward side, had a bad surf breaking over the ice, so we tried
to weather a point on the floe and get around to its lee where we
could see a safe cove to haul out in, but our unwieldy boats would
not sail close enough to the wind, and we failed to make it. Chipp’s
case by this time was desperate; his boat was badly flooded and in
spite of all the bailing his men could do, the waterlogged cutter
seemed ready to sink under him. There was nothing for it but to land
on the weather side of the ice, which dangerous maneuver, with a
rolling sea breaking badly on the floe and shooting surf high into the
air, was skilfully accomplished without, to our intense relief,
smashing all our boats beyond repair.
The gale grew worse. It was now 7:30 p.m. and beginning to get
dark. (Between the later season of the year and our being farther
south, we no longer had the midnight sun with us, but instead about
eight hours of darkness.) There was no hope of further progress that
night, so we pitched camp on the floe, while the gale started to push
ice in about us from all directions.
That night before supper, the captain called Chipp and me to his
tent. The question for discussion was the boat sledges. We had
since leaving Bennett Island broken up all our other provision
sledges and burned them for fuel. Chipp strenuously insisted that the
boat sledges be treated likewise immediately.
“Captain,” he said, “I’m surprised I’m here to talk about it even! My
boat’s so topheavy with that sledge across her rails, a dozen times I
thought she’d either founder or capsize. And a man can’t swim a
minute in these clothes in that ice water. If she’d sunk under me,
long before you or the chief could’ve beat back against that wind to
pick us up, we’d all be gone!”
With Chipp’s facts, honestly enough stated, De Long was inclined
to agree and so was I, but the question was too serious to be
decided out of hand. On our first journey across the pack, the
sledges were our salvation, and it was the heavy boats (holding us
back like anchors) which we then gravely considered abandoning
lest our party perish before we ever reached water. Now the situation
was reversed; it was those boats, dragged across the ice at the cost
of indescribable agony, which had become our main hope of escape,
but still could we afford to abandon the sledges which so obviously
now imperilled our safety in the boats? We were not yet out of the
pack; one had only to poke his head through the tent flap to see as
much ice as ever we had seen. And if we had to sledge over much
more of the pack to get south, without those boat sledges we
couldn’t do it. What then should be done with the sledges?
With our lives very likely depending on that decision, we
considered it deeply. The conclusion, concurred in by all, was that
the certainty of disaster if we kept the sledges, outweighed the
possibility of being now caught permanently in pack ice, unable to
move except by sledging, and De Long finally give the order to burn
the sledges. In a few minutes, knives and hatchets in the hands of
sailors eager to make an end of those incubi before the captain
could change his mind, had reduced them to kindling and they were
burning merrily beneath our pots. No man regretted seeing them go
who had toiled in the harnesses dragging them and their bulky
burden of boats across the ice pack, laboring as men have never
done before, and as I hope may never have to again.
Further to help Chipp, the captain in expectation next morning of a
long voyage among the New Siberian Islands, decided to even
matters somewhat more by removing from Chipp’s stubby cutter,
only sixteen feet long, part of its load. Accordingly he decreased its
crew by two men, taking Ah Sam (our Chinese cook who had since
the sinking of the Jeannette with nothing but pemmican on the menu,
not cooked a meal, serving instead only as a beast of burden like all
others) into the first cutter with him, and sending Manson, a husky
Swedish seaman, to join my crew in the whaleboat. In addition, De
Long took into the first cutter part of Chipp’s supply of pemmican, still
more to lighten his boat which was certainly a worse sea boat than
either my twenty-five foot long whaleboat or his own twenty foot long
cutter.
With these rearrangements, we camped for the night in the midst
of a howling gale drifting snow about our tents, the while we
earnestly hoped that the wind would break up the pack in the
morning, and allow us to proceed.
But instead, for ten wearing days we lay in that camp, unable to
launch a boat and unable of course to sledge them over the broken
pack, while the weather varied between gales with heavy snow and
dismal fogs, and we ate our hearts out in inaction, watching our
scanty food supplies constantly melting away with no progress to
show for it. Our hard bread gave out altogether, our coffee was all
used up, and our menu came down to two items only, pemmican and
tea three times a day, with an ounce of our fast-vanishing lime-juice
for breakfast to ward off scurvy. To save what little alcohol we had
left (we had been using it for fuel for making tea and coffee) we
continued to burn up the kindling from our boat sledges, but long
before we broke camp, even that was all gone, and we started again
on our precious alcohol.
The tobacco gave out (each man had been permitted to take one
pound with him from the Jeannette). To the captain, an inveterate
pipe smoker, this was a severe trial and left him perfectly wretched,
till Erichsen, who still had a trifle left, generously shared with him the
contents of his pouch. De Long declined to take more than a pipeful,
but Erichsen insisting on an even division of his trifling remnant, the
skipper found he had enough for three smokes. Immediately seeking
out the doctor and Nindemann, he divided with them and together
they puffed on their pipes, in a mixed state of happiness and despair
watching the last tobacco from the Jeannette curling upward in
smoke wreaths into the Arctic air.
 Next day, like the others, they were smoking used tea leaves and
getting little solace from them.
Our second day in this camp, through a rift in the fog we sighted
land twenty miles to the southward, in the captain’s opinion the
island of New Siberia, one of the largest islands of the New Siberian
group and the one farthest eastward in that archipelago.
As the days went by and in the fog and snow we drifted westward
with the pack before an easterly gale, the knowledge of that
unapproachable island added to our aggravations. We could do little
except repair our boats (which, using pemmican tallow, rags, and
lampwick for caulking materials, Nindemann and Sweetman labored
at) and wait for the pack to open, a constant watch night and day
being set with orders that if a lead appeared, we should immediately
launch our boats into it. But none showed up. In desperation at the
delay, which was bringing us face to face with the prospect of
starvation, De Long again sent for Chipp and me.
“Mr. Chipp,” he asked, “can you move your boat across this ice to
the land?”
“No,” said Chipp flatly. “It’ll stave in her bottom trying to ride her on
her keel.”
“Mr. Melville,” turning to me, “can you get the whaleboat across? Is
this any worse than when you landed with the dinghy on Henrietta
Island?”
“Captain,” I replied sadly, “no worse, but it’s as bad; the ice is just
as much alive. And I didn’t take the little dinghy to Henrietta Island,
even on her sledge; I left her at the edge of the moving pack. I can
get the whaleboat across this ice to that island if you order me, sir,
but when she gets there, she’ll be worthless as a boat.”
“Well, in that case,” remarked De Long, bitterly disappointed at our
views, “it’s no use taking them there.” And while he didn’t voice it,
there was little question but that he deeply regretted having ever cut
up the boat sledges. In my opinion, however, sledges or no sledges,
we couldn’t safely get those boats through to the land over that
swirling ice between. We started to leave.
 “Hold on a moment,” ordered De Long, pulling a book out from
under his parka, “there’s something else.” He pushed his head out
the tent flap, called to the man on watch in the snow. “Send Seaman
Starr in here!”
In a moment or two, Starr, with his snow-flecked bulk practically
filling the tent, stood beside us. The captain opened the book. It was
in German, one of Petermann’s publications, the best we had on
New Siberia and the Lena Delta. Starr, aside from his Russian, could
also read German, and as he translated, De Long, Chipp, and I
followed on the chart, putting down Petermann’s data on the islands,
and especially on the Lena Delta, where near Cape Barkin were
marked winter huts and settlements, a signal station similar to a
lighthouse, and the indication that there we could get native pilots to
take us up the Lena. At this time the captain warned me that should
we be separated, Cape Barkin was to be our rendezvous. At that
point the delta formed a right-angled corner. To the westward from
Cape Barkin, the coast ran due west; but at the cape itself, the coast
turned and ran sharply south for over a hundred miles, while through
both the northern and the eastern faces of this corner-like delta, the
Lena discharged in many branches to the sea. But Cape Barkin at
this corner we must make—there between the pilots and the
settlements shown by Petermann, our voyage would end and our
troubles would be over. The remainder of our journey home would
merely be a tedious and probably a slow trip on reindeer sledges
southward from the Siberian coast inland fifteen hundred miles to
Irkutsk, then a long jaunt westward by post coaches to Moscow, and
so back to America. The captain marked it all out, made two copies
of his chart, one for me and one for Chipp, and then dismissing Starr,
told us,
“There are your charts with the courses laid out to Cape Barkin. As
I informed you in my written order at Bennett Island, Melville, if
unfortunately we are separated, you will continue on till you make
the mouth of the Lena River, and without delay ascend the Lena to a
Russian settlement from which you can be forwarded with your party
to a place of safety and easy access. Try to reach some settlement
large enough to feed and shelter your men before thinking about
waiting for me. And the same for you, Chipp. That’s all, gentlemen.
Be ready to start the instant the ice breaks.” He drew out his pipe,
ending the discussion. We took our charts and departed, leaving the
skipper trying to light off a pipeful of damp tea leaves.
On August 29th, after ten days of fuming in idleness during which
time our pack drifted first westward and then southward, the weather
cleared a bit and we found ourselves between Fadejovski and New
Siberia Islands, and closer to Fadejovski, the western one of the pair.
At noon, Dunbar scouting on the pack, reported a lead half a mile
away. Immediately we broke camp, and carrying our provisions on
our backs while we carefully skidded our boats along on their keels,
we dragged across that half mile of floe to the water and launched
our boats, thankful even for the chance the remainder of the
afternoon to fight our way through swirling ice cakes to the
southward. The drift in that lead was rapid, the broken ice there was
violently tumbling and eddying, and as we swept down the bleak
coast five miles off Fadejovski Island unsheltered from the intense
cold, with oars and boat hooks savagely fending off those heaving
floes on all sides of us to keep our frail boats from being crushed, it
was like making passage through the very gates of hell! For two
horrible days we worked along the coast fighting off impending death
in that swirling maelstrom of ice, when with the pack thinning
somewhat, we managed at last to work our way to land on the
southerly end of Fadejovski, three weeks underway since leaving
Bennett Island, and humbly grateful to find ourselves disembarking
still alive.
We stayed one night on a mossy slope trying to thaw our frozen
feet by tramping on something other than ice, and as Dunbar
expressively put it, “Sanding our hoofs.” They needed it. The most
pleased member of our party was Snoozer, now our sole remaining
dog, who joyously tore round chasing lemmings, while we sought for
real game which we didn’t find. And that night was served out our
last ration of lime-juice which so heroically salvaged by Starr from
the sinking Jeannette, had shielded us from scurvy for two and a half
months on our tramp over the ice. But we saw the last drops of that
unsavory medicine disappear without regret and without foreboding
for the future, for now we were nearing the open sea and our voyage
was nearing its end.
Next morning we shoved off from the south end of Fadejovski,
only to discover despondently that we had embarked on a twelve
days’ odyssey through the New Siberian Archipelago before which
our previous sufferings seemed nothing. We had not wholly lost the
ice; instead we had only added to our previous perils some new
ones—vast hidden shoals, bitter freezing weather, long nights of
sitting motionless and cramped in our open boats, while the Arctic
winds mercilessly pierced our unshielded bodies, and the hourly
dread of drowning in a gale.
It was seventy miles over the sea to Kotelnoi, the next island
westward in the group. To get there, instead of being able to sail
directly west, we found we had to stand far to the southward of
Fadejovski to clear a shoal, getting out of sight of land. When night
caught us far out in the open sea, we discovered even there shoals
with less than two feet of water, over which a heavy surf was
breaking badly. Standing off into deeper water, we beat all night into
the wind to save ourselves from destruction, for we had no anchors
in our boats. Wet, miserable, frozen by spray coming over, we
stayed in the boats, so crowded we could not move our freezing
legs. At dawn we stood on again westward, with streaming ice
bobbing all about us, traveling before a fresh breeze all day. In the
late afternoon, having lost sight of Chipp and the second cutter, his
boat being unable to keep up, we finally spotted a floe sizeable
enough to camp on. De Long signalled me to stop; we promptly
secured to it and waited for Chipp to catch up, meanwhile for the first
time in thirty-six hours stretching our wet forms out in our sleeping
bags on the ice, while a gale blew up, snow fell, and the sea got very
rough, which gave us grave concern over our missing boat. By
daylight there was so much pack ice surrounding our two boats, it
seemed unbelievable we had arrived there by water, and our anxiety
for Chipp increased. We lay all day icebound, all night, and all next
day, occasionally sighting the mountains on Kotelnoi Island, perhaps
ten miles to the westward. And then Chipp and the second cutter
finally showed up, coasting the north side of our floe, half a mile
away across the pack, and soon Chipp and Kuehne, walking across
the ice, were with us. They had had a terrible time the night we lost
them; long before they sighted any floes, the gale caught them, and
over the stern where Chipp and Dunbar sat steering, icy seas
tumbled so badly that all hands bailing hardly kept the boat afloat till
they finally found a drifting floe. When at last he steered in under the
lee of the ice, but one man, Starr, was still able to jump from the boat
and hold her in with the painter while the others, badly frozen, could
barely crawl out over the gunwale. He himself and Dunbar in the
sternsheets found themselves so cramped from sitting at the tiller
that they could not even crawl and had to be lifted by Starr from the
boat. To warm up his men, Chipp had served out immediately two
ounces of brandy each, but Dunbar was so far gone that he promptly
threw his up and fainted. The second day, underway again, he had
kept westward for thirty miles before sighting us in the late afternoon,
and there he was, with his crew badly knocked out, in the open water
on the edge of the pack surrounding us completely.
To get underway next morning, there was nothing for it but to
move our two boats over the ice to where Chipp’s was, and with no
sledges, we faced that portage over bad ice with deep trepidation.
Five men, headed by Nindemann, went ahead with our solitary pick-
ax and some carpenter’s chisels to level a road. We carried all our
clothes and knapsacks on our backs, but De Long dared not take the
pemmican cans from the boats, for so scanty was our food supply
getting that the chance of any man’s stumbling and losing a can of
pemmican down a crack in the ice was a major tragedy not to be
risked. So food and all, the boats had to be skidded on their keels
over the ice, leaving long strips of oak peeled off the keels by the
sharp floe edges as we dragged along. As carefully as we could, all
hands at a time on one boat, we lightered them along that half mile,
and when after seven fearful hours of labor we got them into the
water, it was with unmitigated joy we saw they still floated.
We made a hasty meal of cold pemmican, and all hands
embarked. De Long, last off to board his cutter, was bracing himself
on the floe edge to climb aboard, when the ice gave way beneath
him, and he went overboard, disappearing completely beneath the
surface. Fortunately, Erichsen in the cockpit got a grip on him while
he was still totally submerged (for he might not ever have risen
except under the widespread pack) and hauled him, completely
soaked to the skin, in over the stern. Without delay, except to wipe
the water from his eyes, the captain signalled us to make sail.
We fought again fog, ice, and shoals for six hours more to cover
the last ten miles to Kotelnoi, and when night finally caught us, all we
knew was that we were on a sandbank where we gladly pitched
camp, in total ignorance of whether we had made the island itself or
an offshore bank and caring less so long as we could stop. We found
some driftwood on the bank, made a fire, and soon, most of all the
captain still in his soaked clothes, we were trying to warm ourselves
around it. So ended September 4th.
The next two days we tried to struggle west along the south coast
of Kotelnoi, largest island of the archipelago, but a blinding snow-
storm and ice closing in held us to our sand spit. Going inshore,
some of the men found the long-deserted huts of the fossil ivory
hunters, and even a few elephant tusks, but not a trace of game, and
our supply of pemmican kept on shrinking.
Signs of physical breakdown were becoming plain enough in our
company. Our rations were slender and unsatisfying. Long hours on
end of sitting cramped and soaked in wet clothes and icy water, often
unable in the overcrowded boats even to stretch a leg to relieve it, no
chance in the boats to stretch out and sleep at all, and the mental
strain of working those small boats in tumbling seas and through
tossing ice, were beginning to tell. On the pack at least, each night
we could camp and stretch ourselves in our bags to rest after each
day of toil; now except when bailing, we were compelled to endure
the cold motionless.
Captain De Long’s feet were giving way. Swollen with cold and
with toes broken out with chilblains, he could barely move about, and
then only in great pain. Dunbar looked older than ever, fainted
frequently, and the doctor said his heart showed a weakness that
might carry him off under any strain. De Long admonished the ice-
pilot to give up all work and take things easy, but even merely sitting
up in the boat was a strain which could not be avoided. To keep him
braced up, the doctor gave him a flask of brandy with orders to use it
regularly. Danenhower’s eyes continued the same—poor, but with
one eye at least partly usable when the sun did not shine, which
fortunately for Dan in all that fog and snow was most of the time. But
Dan continued to pester the doctor to put him off the sicklist, driving
Ambler nearly wild that he should be nagged to consider such an
unethical request. Others too began to complain—Erichsen of his
feet, Cole of a general dullness in his head. As for all the rest of us,
gaunt and underfed, with seamed and cracked faces, untrimmed
whiskers, haggard eyes, shivering bodies, and raw and bleeding
hands and feet, against a really well man we would have stood out
as objects of horror, but there being none such amongst us, our
appearance excited no special comment among ourselves.
Our third day on Kotelnoi, we managed to work a few miles to the
westward along the coast, rowing and dragging our boats along the
sand, making perhaps thirteen miles inshore of the ice pack which
we could not penetrate to the sea beyond. But on September 7th,
before an early morning northeast breeze with the temperature well
below freezing, the pack opened up and we sailed away through
drifting ice streaming before the wind, for Stolbovoi Island, sixty-five
miles southwest. By noon, I concluded that somehow I must have
stove in the bottom of my boat, for we were making water faster than
it could be bailed and the boat started to sink. Signalling the others, I
hastily ran alongside a nearby floe, where my crew had a lively time
getting the whaleboat up on the ice before she went from under us.
Capsizing her to learn the damage, I was much relieved to find we
had only knocked the plug up out of the drain hole. We found the
plug beneath the overturned boat, tried it again in the hole, and
found it projected through an inch. Evidently bumping on some ice
beneath the bilge had knocked it out, so I sawed off the projection to
prevent a recurrence, righted and floated my boat again. Meanwhile
being on the ice, we all had dinner and shoved off again.
With a fair breeze, we stood southwest for Stolbovoi Island, fifty
miles off now. The breeze freshened and we made good progress,
too good indeed for Chipp and the second cutter, as both De Long
and I had to double reef our sails to avoid completely losing Chipp
astern again. The sea increased somewhat, the boats rolled badly,
and we had to bail continuously, but as we were getting along toward
the Lena, that didn’t worry us, nor did the fact that being poor sailors,
Collins, Newcomb, and Ah Sam became deathly seasick again.
We kept on through the night, delayed a bit from midnight until
dawn by streaming ice we couldn’t see and cold, wet, and wretched
as usual. Several times during the night we were nearly smashed by
being hurled by surf against unseen floes. Once, under oars, I had to
tow the captain’s boat clear of a lee shore of ice from which he
couldn’t claw off, to save him from destruction. But after daybreak,
we could see better our dangers and avoid them in time, so that we
stood on all day till four in the afternoon, when having been
underway thirty-three hours in extreme danger and discomfort, the
captain signalled to haul out and camp on a solitary floe nearby.
Long before this, we should have hit Stolbovoi, but a shift in the wind
had apparently carried us by it to the north.
After a cold night on this floe, at four in the morning on September
9th we were again underway through rain and snow. By afternoon
we were picking a path through an immense field of drifting floes
which luckily we penetrated and got through to the southwest, when
sighting a low island to the westward, evidently Semenovski, the last
island of the New Siberian Archipelago between us and the Lena, we
abandoned all idea of searching to the southward for Stolbovoi which
we had never sighted, and headed west instead for Semenovski. As
luck would have it, the wind of which we had too much the day
before to suit some members of our party, now died away completely
and out went our oars. Through a calm sea we rowed the lumbering
boats for six hours, warming up the oarsmen at any rate, though
horribly chafing their frozen hands. Then, a fog setting in at 10 p.m.,
and it being impossible to see the other boats, the captain sang out
through the night to haul out on the ice, where by candlelight we ate
our pemmican.
Next day, September 10th, still rowing through the fog, we made
Semenovski by noon, and after a passage of one hundred and ten
miles from Kotelnoi, we beached our boats and camped for a much