ese tides from the fact that on the shores of the Polar Sea
the mean rise is only a little over a foot, while in the narrowest part
of the channel the tide rises and falls twelve or fourteen feet.

As a rule, looking across the channel, there seems to be no
water--nothing but uneven and tortured ice. When the tide is at the ebb,
the ship follows the narrow crack of water between the shore and the
moving pack of the center, driving ahead with all her force; then, when
the flood tide begins to rush violently southward, the ship must hurry
to shelter in some niche of the shore ice, or behind some point of rock,
to save herself from destruction or being driven south again.

This method of navigation, however, is one of constant hazard, as it
keeps the vessel between the immovable rocks and the heavy and rapidly
drifting ice, with the ever-present possibility of being crushed between
the two. My knowledge of the ice conditions of these channels and their
navigation was absolutely my own, gained in former years of traveling
along the shores and studying them for this very purpose. On my various
expeditions I had walked every foot of the coast line, from Payer Harbor
on the south to Cape Joseph Henry on the north, from three to eight
times. I knew every indentation of that coast, every possible shelter
for a ship, every place where icebergs usually grounded, and the places
where the tide ran strongest, as accurately as a tugboat captain in New
York harbor knows the piers of the North River water front. When
Bartlett was in doubt as to making a risky run, with the chance of not
finding shelter for the ship, I could usually say to him:

"At such and such a place, so far from here, is a little niche behind
the delta of a stream, where we can drive the _Roosevelt_ in, if
necessary"; or:

"Here icebergs are almost invariably grounded, and we can find shelter
behind them"; or:

"Here is a place absolutely to be shunned, for the floes pile up here at
the slightest provocation, in a way that would destroy any ship afloat."

It was this detailed knowledge of every foot of the Ellesmere Land and
Grant Land coasts, combined with Bartlett's energy and ice experience,
that enabled us to pass four times between this arctic Scylla and
Charybdis.

The fog lifted about nine o'clock the first night out, the sun peeped
through the clouds, and as we passed Payer Harbor, on the Ellesmere Land
side, we saw, sharply outlined against the snow,