In The Lena Delta PDF Download

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1885 edition. Excerpt: ... APPENDIX. THE MELVILLE SLED. The main advantages of the Melville sled over all others for Arctic travel are its great strength attained by so little additional weight, and the facility with which it can be packed and will hold its load securely. It is impossible to build a sled combining all the advantages that a critical novice might exact for Arctic use; for although weight will not necessarily give the maximum of strength, yet the minimum of weight can without doubt give the minimum of strength, and one element of weakness may destroy its total efficiency. It is only when his sled breaks down that the Arctic traveler realizes how fatal it is to rely upon this argument of a minimum weight. On the retreat from the scene of the sinking of the Jeannette, every sled save the three solid oaken ones was broken in less than a week, and even these oaken sleds were many times temporarily disabled by the turning under of the runners. This was the first indication of weakness in the best sled ever used for Arctic service (the McClintock); and when the cross-bars were firmly lashed in order to prevent the turning under of the runners, then the top-rails, where they were pierced by the tenons of the uprights, were wrenched off or split open from mortise to mortise. And this, indeed, proved to be the weak point of all the McClintock sleds on our retreat, and it was the repairing of them, so that they could perform the work under which they had broken down, that suggested the idea of the "double-bow " and "bow-string" runner of the Melville sled. Once, when the top-rail of a sled had split open, a new rail made from part of an oar was lashed next the broken one, and vertical posts were fastened alongside of the old posts, which in turn were lashed...