es is the longest on record;
but, of course, we are unable to say for what portion of the distance
the bird was carried by the balloon, and when or where liberated; that
depending upon the strength and direction of the gale in which the
balloon was carried along.

[Headnote: _CARRIER-PIGEONS.--KITES._]

Kites, which the kind Mr. Benjamin Smith had supplied me with, both as
a tractile power to assist us in dragging sledges, as well as a means
of signalizing between parties, afforded much interest, and the success
of our experiments in applying them to dragging weights was so great,
that all those I was able to supply gladly provided themselves with so
useful an auxiliary to foot-travellers. Experience, however, taught us
how impossible it was to command a fair wind, without which they were
useless weight, and in severe weather there was some danger, when
handling or coiling up the lines, of having to expose the hands and
being frost-bitten.

My attempts failed to despatch the kites with a weight attached
sufficient to keep a strain on the string, and so keep the kite aloft,
whilst at the same time it was enabled to proceed through the air in
any direction I chose; for, as may be conceived, a little too much
weight made the kite a fixture, whilst a little too little, or a sudden
flaw of wind, would topple the kite over and bring it to the earth. As
a means of signalizing between ships when stationary, the flying of
kites of different colours, sizes, or numbers, attached one to the
other, would, I am sure, in the clear atmosphere of the Arctic regions,
be found wonderfully efficacious.

Lastly, we carried out, more I believe from amusement than from any
idea of being useful, a plan which had suggested itself to the people
of Sir James Ross's expedition when wintering in Leopold Harbour in
1848-49, that of enclosing information in a collar, secured to the
necks of the Arctic foxes, caught in traps, and then liberated. Several
animals thus entrusted with despatches or records were liberated by
different ships; but, as the truth must be told, I fear in many cases
the next night saw the poor "postman," as Jack facetiously termed him,
in another trap, out of which he would be taken, killed, the skin taken
off, and packed away, to ornament, at some future day, the neck of some
fair Dulcinea. As a "sub," I was admitted into this secret mystery, or
otherwise, I with others might have accounted for the disappearance of
the col