Fortunately nobody was hurt, and all made out to get down in safety.
While this remarkable piece of mountaineering and Arctic exploration
was in progress, a light skin-covered boat was dragged over the ice
and launched on a strip of water that stretched in front of an
accessible ravine, the bed of an ancient glacier, which I felt assured
would conduce by an easy grade to the summit of the island. The slope
of this ravine for the first hundred feet or so was very steep, but
inasmuch as it was full of firm, icy snow, it was easily ascended by
cutting steps in the face of it with an ax that I had brought from the
ship for the purpose. Beyond this there was not the slightest
difficulty in our way, the glacier having graded a fine, broad road.
ON THE SUMMIT.
Kellet, who discovered this island in 1849, and landed on it under
unfavorable circumstances, describes it as an inaccessible rock. The
sides are, indeed, in general, extremely sheer and precipitous all
around, though skilled mountaineers would find many gullies and slopes
by which they might reach the summit. I first pushed on to the head of
the glacier valley, and thence along the back bone of the island to
the highest point, which I found to be about twelve hundred feet above
the level of the sea. This point is about a mile and a half from the
northwest end, and four and a half from the northeast end, thus making
the island about six miles in length.
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