Polar Pathways: Robert E. Peary's Arctic Expeditions
The North Pole - Continuing
"Our hopes were soon realized, for at one o'clock in the morning, March 30, when I awoke and looked at my watch, the murmur from the closing lead had increased to a hoarse roar, punctuated with groans and with reports like those of rifles, dying away to the east and west like the sounds from a mighty firing line. Looking through the peep-hole, I saw that the black curtain had thinned so that I could see through it to another similar, though blacker, curtain behind, indicating still another lead further on... The grinding and groaning of the ice had ceased, and the smoke and haze had disappeared, as is usual when a lead closes up or freezes over. We rushed across before the ice should open again…We did our best to make up for the previous day's delay, and when we finally camped on a heavy old floe we had made a good twenty miles." - Robert E. Peary in The North Pole, published in 1910
