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Reconsidering Science Learning 1st Edition Eileen
Scanlon Digital Instant Download
Author(s): Eileen Scanlon
ISBN(s): 9780415328302, 0415328306
Edition: 1
File Details: PDF, 1.64 MB
Year: 2003
Language: english

Reconsidering Science Learning
Reconsidering Science Learning looks at science learning in a wide range of contexts.
A variety of issues are explored in terms of curriculum and science provision in
both schools and universities and for adult learners in distance education settings.
The reader is divided into four parts. Part 1 deals with the arguments put
forward for studying science and includes a discussion on what science learners
need to know about the nature of science and how decisions about what forms
science curricula are made. Part 2 includes chapters on the processes by which
science is learned. Part 3 focuses on opportunities for developing science learning
for all students, including extending access to science knowledge and increasing
students’ motivation for learning science. The fourth part deals with researching
science education.
Reconsidering Science Learning will be of particular interest to teachers on masters
courses in science education and academics with an interest in science education.
This is a companion book to Mediating Science Learning through Information and
Communications Technology, also published by RoutledgeFalmer.
Eileen Scanlon, Patricia Murphy, Jeff Thomas and Elizabeth Whitelegg are all
members of The Open University MSc in Science team.

SEH806 Contemporary Issues in Science Learning
The companion volume in this series is Mediating Science Learning Through Informa-
tion and Communications Technology (ICT) by Richard Holliman and Eileen Scanlon.
Both of the Readers are part of a course, Contemporary Issues in Science
Learning (SEH806), that is itself part of an MSc in Science Programme at the
Open University and also counts towards the MA in Education and the MA in
Online and Distance Education.
The Open University MSc in Science
The MSc in Science at the Open University is a relatively new ‘distance-taught’
programme that has been designed for students who want to explore broad scien-
tific topics at postgraduate level. It provides opportunities to pursue some of
science’s most pressing issues using the innovative teaching methods pioneered at
The Open University.
Structure of the MSc in Science
The MSc in Science is a modular programme that allows students to select modules
that best fit with their interests and professional goals. The Programme has two
main themes or ‘strands’: Science Studies and Frontiers in Medical Science.
Modules currently available
Science and the Public
Communicating Science
Imaging in Medicine
Molecules in Medicine
Issues in Brain and Behaviour
The Project Module
It is also possible to count other OU modules towards the MSc in Science and to
count MSc in Science modules towards other OU awards such as the MA in
Education.
OU supported learning
The MSc in Science Programme, in common with other OU programmes, provides
great flexibility. Students study at their own pace and in their own time, anywhere
in the European Union. They receive specially prepared study materials and
benefit from tutorial support (electronically and at day schools), thus offering them
the chance to work with other students.
How to apply
If you would like to register for this Programme, or find out more information, visit
our website http://www.open.ac.uk/science/msc. If you would like to find out more
general information about available courses, please contact the Course Informa-
tion and Advice Centre, PO Box 724, The Open University, Walton Hall, Milton
Keynes MK7 6ZS, UK (Telephone 01908 653231). Details can also be viewed on
our web pages: http://www.open.ac.uk/courses

Reconsidering
Science Learning
Edited by Eileen Scanlon,
Patricia Murphy, Jeff Thomas
and Elizabeth Whitelegg

First published 2004
by RoutledgeFalmer
11 New Fetter Lane, London EC4P 4EE
Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by RoutledgeFalmer 29 West 35th Street, New York, NY 10001
RoutledgeFalmer is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group
© 2004 The Open University
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A catalog record has been requested
ISBN 0–415–32831–4 (pbk)
ISBN 0–415–32830–6 (hbk)
This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2004.
ISBN 0-203-46402-8 Master e-book ISBN
ISBN 0-203-47072-9 (Adobe eReader Format)

Contents
List of illustrations ix
Sources xi
Preface xiii
PART 1
What is science? 1
1.1 What is science? Teaching science in secondary schools 3
MICHAEL REISS
1.2 School science, citizenship and the public understanding of science 13
EDGAR W. JENKINS
1.3 School science and its problems with scientific literacy 21
PETER FENSHAM
PART 2
Learning science 37
2.1 The child 41
SUSAN GREENFIELD
2.2 Constructing scientific knowledge in the classroom 58
ROSALIND DRIVER, HILARY ASOKO, JOHN LEACH,
EDUARDO MORTIMER AND PHILIP SCOTT
2.3 Transforming schools into communities of thinking and learning
about serious matters 74
ANN L. BROWN
2.4 Narratives of science 90
JEROME BRUNER

2.5 Preparing students for competent scientific practice: implications
of recent research in science and technology studies 99
MICHELLE K. MCGINN AND WOLFF-MICHAEL ROTH
2.6 Where’s the science? Understanding the form and function of
workplace science 118
PETER CHIN, HUGH MUNBY, NANCY HUTCHINSON, JENNY TAYLOR
AND FIONA CLARK
2.7 Laboratories 135
JOHN WALLACE AND WILLIAM LOUDEN, WITH CONTRIBUTIONS
BY BEVAN MCGUINESS, WOLFF-MICHAEL ROTH AND PENNY J. GILMER
PART 3
Opportunities for developing inclusive science learning 151
3.1 Transcending cultural borders: implications for science teaching 153
OLUGBEMIRO J. JEGEDE AND GLEN S. AIKENHEAD
3.2 Cultural perspectives on the teaching and learning of science 176
KENNETH TOBIN
3.3 Defining ‘science’ in a multicultural world: implications for
science education 195
WILLIAM W. COBERN AND CATHLEEN C. LOVING
3.4 Marginalization of socio-scientific material in science–
technology–society science curricula: some implications
for gender inclusivity and curriculum reform 215
GWYNETH HUGHES
PART 4
Researching science education 233
4.1 Science education: research, practice and policy 235
EDGAR W. JENKINS
4.2 Science education and environmental education 250
SUSAN BARKER
Index 263
viii Contents

Illustrations
Figures
1.1.1 What is the relationship between science and that which it
describes? 5
2.3.1 Schematic representation of the basic system of activities
underlying FCL practices 79
2.3.2 Cross-sectional and microgenetic data on the number of
coherent connections between invented solutions
in the design of an animal of the future 81
2.3.3 Idealized developmental corridor for the design of science
instruction 85
2.6.1 A depiction of the theoretical framework 123
2.6.2 Areas for the development of instructional strategies 132
3.3.1 Native American views about nature 202
3.3.2 Epistemological pyramid 209
Tables
2.6.1 The three versions of science 121
3.1.1 An overview of a cultural approach to science education 159

Sources
Where a chapter in this book is based on or is a reprint or revision of material
previously published elsewhere, details are given below, with grateful acknowl-
edgements to the original publishers.
Chapter 1.1 This is an edited version of a chapter originally published in Amos, S.
and Boohan, R. (eds) Teaching Science in Secondary Schools, pp. 40–54, Routledge-
Falmer (2002).
Chapter 1.2 Reprinted from International Journal of Science Education 21(7),
pp. 703–10, Taylor and Francis (1999).
Chapter 1.3 This is an edited version of a chapter originally published in
Levinson, R. and Thomas, J. (eds) Science Today, pp. 119–36, Routledge (1997).
Chapter 2.1 This is an edited version of Chapter 3 in The Private Life of the Brain,
pp. 51–76, Penguin (2000).
Chapter 2.2 This is an edited version of an article originally published in Educa-
tional Researcher 23(7), pp. 5–12, ©American Educational Research Association
(1994).
Chapter 2.3 This is an edited version of an article originally published in American
Psychologist 52(4), pp. 399–413, ©American Psychological Association (1997).
Chapter 2.4 This is an edited version of Chapter 6 in The Culture of Education,
pp. 115–29, Harvard UP (1996).
Chapter 2.5 This is an edited version of an article originally published in Educa-
tional Researcher, 28(3), pp.14–24, ©American Educational Research Association
(1999).
Chapter 2.6 Adapted from a paper presented at National Association for
Research in Science Teaching, New Orleans, April 2002.
Chapter 2.7 This is an edited version of Chapter 3 in Wallace, J. and Louden, W.
(eds) Dilemmas of Science Teaching: perspectives and problems of practice, pp. 36–55,
RoutledgeFalmer (2002).

Chapter 3.1 This is an edited version of an article originally published in Research
in Science and Technological Education 17(1), pp. 45–66, Carfax Publishing Ltd,
(1999).
Chapter 3.2 This is an edited version of a chapter originally published in Ogawa,
M. (ed.) Effects of Traditional Cosmology on Science Education, pp. 15–21, Faculty of
Education, Ibaraki University, Japan (1997).
Chapter 3.3 This is an edited version of an article originally published in Science
Education 85(1), pp. 50–67, ©Wiley (2001).
Chapter 3.4 This is an edited version of an article originally published in Journal of
Research in Science Teaching 37(5), pp. 426–40, ©Wiley (2000).
xii Reconsidering science learning

Preface
This collection of readings has been chosen to complement the Open University’s
course on contemporary issues in science learning, which is part of a Master’s
degree. This is the first of two volumes which together provide our students with a
set of readings for their use in the course. The other reader deals with the impact of
new technology on science learning.
These two volumes of readings form a small part of the Master’s module on
Contemporary Issues which is part of a Master’s course in Science being produced in
the Science Faculty of the Open University by a team from the Faculties of Science
and Education and Language Studies and the Institute of Educational Technology.
It is followed by students aiming for the Master’s degree in the Studies of Science, but
it also can act as a subsidiary course aiming for other Open University Master’s
awards in Education and Open and Distance Learning. Study materials provided by
the University also include a study commentary, set texts and CD-ROMs with a
library of additional paper and video material produced by the BBC. Students also
have access to the Internet and receive tutorials using computer conferencing.
Some of the material in this reader has been newly commissioned by the editors
for use in our course. Some chapters have been adapted and edited from previously
published papers in journals, conference proceedings and books. As a result, a
range of styles has been used by the authors which were appropriate for the original
contents. A range of referencing styles is in use in this volume so students of our
course may notice that they do not all conform to our course referencing style.
This is a collection of readings dealing with contemporary issues in science
learning, and issues and debates in extending access to science knowledge and
research in science education. It is divided into four parts which cover issues of
what science should be taught, theories of learning which have an implication for
science education, opportunities for developing science learning for all and
research in science education. The first part includes a discussion of the nature of
science and the relationships between science, citizenship and the public under-
standing of science and interactions between school science and its problems with
scientific literacy. The second part draws on a wide range of writing on learning
from biologists, educationalists, psychologists and science educators. It includes
discussions of learning communities for science, learning science in the workplace
and laboratory work. The third part explores different aspects of extending access

to science knowledge. This examines the implications of cultural perspectives on
learning science and the role of context in learning science, multicultural and
gender-inclusive approaches. The fourth part on researching science education
reflects on the status and methods used in such work.
The editors would like to thank the other members of the course team for their
help in selecting the articles. We would also like to thank Cheryl Newport, Carol
Johnstone, Gillian Riley and Pat Forster for their invaluable help in the production
of this volume. Opinions expressed in the articles are not necessarily those of the
course team or the Open University.
The editors of the volume would also like to thank the authors who produced
newly commissioned articles: Peter Chin, Hugh Munby, Nancy Hutchinson, Jenny
Taylor and Francis Clark, Queen’s University, Canada; Edgar Jenkins, University
of Leeds; and Susan Barker, University of Warwick, UK.
Eileen Scanlon
xii Preface

Part 1
What is science?
Jeffery N. Thomas
Those anxious about contemporary representations of science in the media dwell
on the presumed disparity between the image of science and the reality as imagined
by insiders. A concern with the representation of science in the classroom surely
needs to occupy as significant a place within the current educational debate. The
impressions of science acquired in early education are presumably especially
durable, shaping perceptions more fundamentally than the ephemeral and mixed
messages that often comprise informal learning. For this reason, the beguilingly
simple questions of ‘what science?’ and ‘for what purpose?’ need to preface any
contemporary debate about science education.
The readings in the first section provide this curtain-raiser to what follows,
touching on the heavily contested topics of the nature of science and the purposes
of science education. Their aim is to challenge and to energize the reader. Michael
Reiss’s stimulating and wide-ranging article ‘What is science?’ sets the scene, by
exploring how the richness, complexity and occasional contradiction that is
contemporary science might be represented in the classroom. In his view, today’s
science is far from rule-bound, unsullied and standardized; he argues for science
that is located within a cultural milieu, with the boundaries of the subject blurred
and tolerant of leakage.
Edgar Jenkins’s elegant article brings together two disciplines that have usually
occupied separate territories and traditions – educational and sociological perspec-
tives on how science understanding is handled. His pioneering work with David
Layton and colleagues showed that citizens lacking a formal knowledge base can be
wonderfully adept self-learners when they have the motivation and opportunity to
find out about aspects of science that have a particular bearing on their lives. The
plea that the science that young people learn has clearer social purpose and rele-
vance therefore seems unarguably clear. But the fact that many such science issues
are entwined with a host of attendant social contexts – including issues of trust,
expertise, media representation and institutional interests – requires of young
people a sensitivity to forms of knowledge and thinking far removed from the
narrow world of science. A science curriculum rich in ‘citizen science’ requires an
approach and content far removed from the insular and fact-rich lessons that are
still widespread today.
Anxieties about ‘what science?’ and ‘for what purpose?’ have a global relevance

and timeliness. Peter Fensham’s account of efforts urging the abandonment of
traditional curricula and the introduction of a genuine ‘science for all’ reports more
frustration than it does achievement. Given that the type of curriculum he advo-
cates shows a ‘warts and all’ science – richer for example in ‘the subjective, irra-
tional … (and) social construction’ – resistance to change might be expected from
the scientific community. His observation that the forces of educational conserva-
tism run much deeper is enlightening. Science educators themselves are seen to
have an ambiguous role. Our lack of research understanding about how students
experience the type of socio-scientific issues that characterize the new-style curric-
ulum suggests that moving ahead will itself be far from risk-free.
If readings are meant to inspire, provoke and unsettle, then these few chapters
will reveal how great is the need for change and how uncertain is the uncharted
path ahead.
2 Reconsidering science learning

1.1 What is science?
Teaching science in
secondary schools
Michael Reiss
I have found Ms … has had to deal with another problem: the history of science is
almost entirely the history of Western science, and Ms … has almost no knowledge
of European history since classical times. This is obviously a considerable drawback
in coming to a general view or coming to grips with many broader problems in the
development of science …
(Copied from a 1981 end-of-term supervision report of a student
from Pakistan doing the second-year undergraduate course in
History of Science at Cambridge University)
Who are scientists?
A while ago, I happened to see a new set of postage stamps produced in the UK, enti-
tled ‘Scientific achievements’ (issued 5 March 1991). It’s worth spending a few
moments imagining what you might expect (or hope!) to see on these stamps. Well,
whatever you thought, the Royal Mail produced four stamps under the heading Scien-
tific achievements’ with the captions ‘Faraday – Electricity’, ‘Babbage – Computer’,
‘Radar – Watson-Watt’ and ‘Jet Engine – Whittle’. I find it difficult to imagine a
narrower conception of what science is and who does it. The image seems to be that
real science is hard physics, with military applications, done by males who are white
and worked on their own between about 1820 and 1940. No wonder so many
students drop science at school as soon as they have the chance! Children come to
school science lessons with clear impressions of what science is, how it operates and
who does it (Driver et al. 1985; Osborne and Freyberg 1985). There is a limit to what
science teachers can realistically be expected to achieve in terms of challenging
social perceptions and changing received wisdom.
It seems sad that the Royal Mail could produce a set of stamps that portrayed such
a biased view of science. Stamps to feature scientists could convey the notion that
women do science, that science didn’t start in the nineteenth century and finish
around the time of the Second World War, that it isn’t a Western construct, that it is
done by people working in groups and that it permeates every area of life. […]

The nature of science
The popular view of what science is and how it proceeds probably goes something
like this:
Science consists of a body of knowledge about the world. The facts that
comprise this knowledge are derived from accurate observations and careful
experiments that can be checked by repeating them. As time goes on, scientific
knowledge steadily progresses.
Such a view persists, not only among the general public, but also among science
teachers and scientists despite the fact that most historians of science, philosophers
of science, sociologists of science and science educationalists hold it to be, at best,
simplified and misleading and, at worst, completely erroneous (Latour 1987;
Woolgar 1988; Wellington 1989; Harding 1991).
It is not too much of a caricature to state that science is seen by many as the way
to truth. Indeed, a number of important scientists have encouraged such a view by
their writings and interviews (e.g. Peter Atkins and Richard Dawkins). It is gener-
ally assumed that the world ‘out there’ exists independently of the particular scien-
tific methodology used to study it (Figure 1.1.1). The advance of science then
consists of scientists discovering eternal truths that exist independently of them
and of the cultural context in which these discoveries are made. All areas of life are
presumed amenable to scientific inquiry. Truth is supposed to emerge unambigu-
ously from experiment like Pallas Athene, the goddess of wisdom, springing mature
and unsullied from the head of Zeus. This view of science is mistaken for a number
of reasons, which I now want to discuss.
Scientists have to choose on what to work
What scientists ‘choose’ to work on is controlled partly by their background as indi-
viduals and partly by the values of the society in which they live and work. Most
scientific research is not pure but applied. In particular, approximately one half of
all scientific research funding is provided for military purposes. To give just one
specific example of the way society determines the topics on which scientists
should work: the 1980s saw a significant reduction in Great Britain in the level of
research into systematics, taxonomy and nomenclature (the classification, identifi-
cation and naming of organisms). This was a direct result of changes in government
funding which, for instance, required the Natural History Museum in London, the
major UK centre for such research, to generate much of its own income. As a
result, the number of scientists working there in these disciplines more than halved
as such scientists generate very little income.
Now, my point is not specifically to complain at the demise of systematics,
taxonomy and nomenclature in the UK, but to point out that society and individual
scientists have to choose on what to work. To a very large extent that choice is not

determined on purely scientific criteria (if such criteria exist), but by political machi-
nations and by the priorities (some would describe them as quirks) of funding bodies.
Scientists do not discover the world out there as it is
Scientists approach their topics of study with preconceptions. There is no such
thing as an impartial observation. In the classroom, this is seen to be the case every
time a group of pupils is asked, for the first time, to draw some cells or sulphur crys-
tals under the microscope. It isn’t possible until you know what to draw. Unless you
know that a leaf of pondweed consists of numerous small, brick-like structures, all
you can see is a mass of green with lines and occasional air bubbles. […]
Instances are legion where we can look back and see how scientists have uncon-
sciously interpreted what they have seen in the light of their cultural heritage. In
his book Metaphors of Mind, Robert Sternberg points out that much of the present
confusion surrounding the concept of intelligence stems from the variety of stand-
points from which the human mind can be viewed (Sternberg 1990). The
geographic metaphor is based on the notion that a theory of intelligence should
provide a map of the mind. This view dates back at least to Gall, an early nineteenth-
century German anatomist and perhaps the most famous of phrenologists. Gall
investigated the topography of the head, looking and feeling for tiny variations in
the shape of the skull. According to him, a person’s intelligence was to be discerned
What is science? 5
Figure 1.1.1 What is the relationship between science and that which it describes?
(Copyright: Chris Madden.)

in the pattern of their cranial bumps. A second metaphor, the computational
metaphor, envisions the mind as a computing device and analogizes the processes
of the mind to the operations of a computer. Other metaphors discussed by Stern-
berg include the biological metaphor, the epistemological metaphor, the anthropo-
logical metaphor, the sociological metaphor and the systems metaphor. The point
is that what scientists see and the models they construct to mirror reality depend
very much on where their point of view is.
A clear example of how the work that scientists do is inevitably affected by who
they are is provided by Jane Goodall’s seminal (if that is not too sexist a term!)
research on chimpanzee behaviour. When she first arrived to study the chimpan-
zees on the banks of Lake Tanganyika, the game warden who took her round made
a mental note that she wouldn’t last more than six weeks. She has stayed for forty
years, producing the definitive accounts of chimpanzee social organization and
behaviour in her fascinating and moving books In the Shadow of Man (van Lawick-
Goodall 1971) and The Chimpanzees of Gombe: Patterns of Behavior (Goodall 1986).
An important point about Jane Goodall is that she had no formal training in
ethology (the science of animal behaviour), having trained as a secretary after
leaving school. As she herself wrote, ‘I was, of course, completely unqualified to
undertake a scientific study of animal behaviour’ (van Lawick-Goodall 1971: 20).
However, she spent some time with the celebrated palaeontologist Louis Leakey and
his wife, Mary, on one of their annual expeditions to Olduvai Gorge on the Serengeti
plains. Louis Leakey became convinced that Goodall was the person he had been
looking for for twenty years – someone who was so fascinated by animals and their
behaviour that they would be happy to spend at least two years studying chimpanzees
in the wild. Leakey was particularly interested in the chimpanzees on the shores of
Lake Tanganyika as the remains of prehistoric people had often been found on lake
shores and he thought it possible that an understanding of chimpanzee behaviour
today might shed light on the behaviour of our Stone Age ancestors.
Goodall couldn’t believe that Leakey was giving her the chance to do what she
most wanted to do – watch chimpanzees in their natural habitat. She felt that her
lack of training would disqualify her. But, as she later wrote:
Louis, however, knew exactly what he was doing. Not only did he feel that a
university training was unnecessary, but even that in some ways it might have
been disadvantageous. He wanted someone with a mind uncluttered and unbi-
ased by theory who would make the study for no other reason than a real desire
for knowledge; and, in addition, someone with a sympathetic understanding of
animal behaviour.
(van Lawick-Goodall 1971: 20)
Now the point, of course, is not that Jane Goodall could approach chimpanzees
with a mind ‘uncluttered and unbiased by theory’ but that the clutter and theory in
her mind was crucially distinct from that in someone who emerged from a univer-
sity course in ethology. In the 1960s, one of the great heresies of academic ethology
was to be anthropomorphic – to treat non-humans as if they had human attributes

and feelings. That is precisely what Jane Goodall did and it allowed fundamentally
new insights into chimpanzee behaviour. A flavour of her approach can be
obtained by reading the following quote:
One day, when Flo was fishing for termites, it became obvious that Figan and
Fifi, who had been eating termites at the same heap, were getting restless and
wanted to go. But old Flo, who had already fished for two hours, and who was
herself only getting about two termites every five minutes, showed no signs of
stopping. Being an old female, it was possible that she might continue for
another hour at least. Several times Figan had set off resolutely along the track
leading to the stream, but on each occasion, after repeatedly looking back at
Flo, he had given up and returned to wait for his mother.
Flint, too young to mind where he was, pottered about on the heap, occasion-
ally dabbling at a termite. Suddenly Figan got up again and this time approached
Flint. Adopting the posture of a mother who signals her infant to climb on to her
back, Figan bent one leg and reached back his hand to Flint, uttering a soft
pleading whimper. Flint tottered up to him at once, and Figan, still whimpering,
put his hand under Flint and gently pushed him on his back. Once Flint was
safely aboard, Figan, with another quick glance at Flo, set off rapidly along the
track. A moment later Flo discarded her tool and followed.
(van Lawick-Goodall 1971: 114–15)
Other writers at the time did not give names to their animals; nor did they use
language like ‘getting restless’, ‘wanted to go’, ‘set off resolutely’ and ‘pottered
about’; nor did they impute to their subjects the ability consciously to manipulate
one another.
Apart from her lack of formal training, there is another factor about Jane
Goodall that may well be significant. She is a woman. The longest-running studies
on animal behaviour have all been carried out by women including: Jane Goodall
on chimpanzees (1960 to present); Dian Fossey on gorillas (1966 to 1985 when she
was murdered, probably because of her dedication to the gorillas); and Fiona
Guinness on red deer (1972 to present). All three worked/work quite exceptionally
long hours with what can only be described as total dedication. In 1978 and 1979, I
spent a couple of months working alongside Fiona Guinness. On average, she
worked fourteen hours a day, seven days a week.
My point is not that research scientists ought to work this long, nor that only
women can show the empathy with animals that these three did or do. Rather, it is
that the personal and social pressures that shaped Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey and
Fiona Guinness were crucial to the type of science that they carried out or do carry
out. And this is true for all scientists. It’s just that it is easier to see in these three
cases. Donna Haraway, in her book Primate Visions: Gender, Race and Nature in the
World of Modern Science, argues that scientific practice is story-telling. The work
that primatologists do is moulded by the environment in which they operate and by
the sort of people they are, so that the stories that they tell reflect the social
agendas that surround them (Haraway 1989).
What is science? 7

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Leaving Lee at the pump, I ran (that is, if barely dragging one ice-
weighted foot after another can be called running) up the ladder
toward the deck. While I climbed, the empty barrel came hurtling
down the hatchway, splashed into the water in the fireroom. Before
Lauterbach could fill and upend it, down on top of the barrel in a
maze of coils came the slack end of the hoisting line. Apparently
Cole’s gang was through.
As I poked my head above the hatch into the open, there—Oh,
gorgeous sight for bleary eyes and aching muscles! was a heavy
stream of water pulsing into the scuppers! Nearby, prone on the
deck where they had dropped in their tracks when they let go the
hoisting line, were four utterly worn-out seamen, gazing
nevertheless admiringly on that beautiful stream. And leaning
against the bulwark watching it, was Jack Cole, who as he saw me,
sang out,
“Praises be, chief; we’re saved! There’ll be no calls for Spell O
from that chap!”

CHAPTER XX
Our immediate battle was won, but the war thus opened that 19th
of January, 1880, between us and the Arctic Sea for the Jeannette
dragged along with varying fortunes till the last day I ever saw her.
Our big steam pump made short work of all the water in the
fireroom that was still water. In an hour the room was bare down to
ice-coated floors and bilges, with the pump easily keeping ahead of
the leakage coming from forward. But the men at the hand pump,
optimistically knocked off the minute the steam pump began
stroking, were unfortunately not wholly relieved. Despite the fact
that we opened wide the gates in the forepeak and the forehold
bulkheads to let the water run freely aft to the fireroom pump, the
flow through was sluggish, impeded I suppose by having to filter
through the coal in the cross bunker. So fifteen minutes out of every
hour, the hand pump was manned again to keep down the water
level in the forehold, while, sad to contemplate, our weary seamen,
between spells at the pump, had to labor in the forehold storerooms
breaking out provisions (much of which were already water soaked)
and sending them up into the deckhouse to save our food from
complete ruin.
It was ten-thirty in the morning when the leak was discovered; it
was three p.m. when I finally got steam up and a pump going; but
at midnight the whole crew was still at work handling stores. The
state we were then in was deplorable beyond description.
Who struck eight bells that night I do not know, for since morning
we had had no anchor watch, but someone, Dunbar perhaps, whose
seagoing habits were hard to repress, snatched a moment from his
task and manned the lanyard. At any rate, as the clear strokes of the
bronze bell rang out on that frost-bitten night, De Long, in water up
to his knees in the forehold, was recalled to the passage of time.
The provisions actually in the water had been broken out; his effort

now was to send up all the remainder which rising water might
menace. But with the bell echoing in his ears, the captain, looking at
the jaded seamen about him, staggering through the water laden
with heavy boxes and casks, toiling like mules, came suddenly to the
realization that they had only the limited endurance of men and
called a halt.
“Knock off, lads,” he said kindly. “If anything more gets wet before
morning, it gets wet. Lay up on deck!” And on deck, as the men
straggled up the hatch to join the rest of the crew round the hand
pump (at the moment unmanned) he ordered Cole to serve out all
around two ounces of brandy each. Frozen hands poured it into
chilled throats, to be downed eagerly at a gulp—there was not a
man who might not have swallowed a whole quart just as eagerly,
and probably then still have felt but little warmth in his congealed
veins.
At the captain’s order, Cole then piped down—the starboard watch
to lay below to their bunks, the port watch for whom there was to
be no immediate rest, to man the hand pump as necessary through
the remainder of that dreary night, keeping the water in the forehold
down below the level of the as yet unshifted stores. The frozen
seamen tramped wearily off, some to rest if they could, the others to
bend their backs over the bars of the pump, which soon resumed its
melancholy clanking.
But neither for me, for the captain, nor for Chipp was there any
rest. Immediately I had downed my share of the brandy, I turned to
at once, figuring how I might get steam and a steam pump forward
to suck directly on the forehold and eliminate altogether the toil over
the hand pump which must soon break our men down. I had in my
engine room that spare No. 4 Sewell and Cameron pump (which my
men and I had so thoughtfully picked up in the dark of the moon at
Mare Island before we started). I set to work on a layout for
installing it in the deckhouse forward; which task, between designing
foundations and sketching out suction and steam lines for it, kept
me up the rest of the night. As for Chipp, he was down in the

forepeak with Nindemann, endeavoring to stop, or at least to
reduce, the leak. The water was pouring in through the innumerable
joints in that mass of heavy pine timbers, which stretching from side
to side and from keel to berth deck in our bow, filled it for a distance
of ten feet abaft the stem. However valuable that pine packing may
have been in stiffening our bow for ramming ice, it was now our
curse, very effectively preventing us from caulking whatever was
sprung in the stem itself. All through the night Nindemann and Chipp
labored, stuffing oakum and tallow into the joints of that packing
where the jets of water squirted through. It was discouraging work.
As fast as their numbed fingers rammed a wad of oakum into a
leaking joint and stopped the flow there, water spurted from the
joints above. Methodically through the night they worked in that
dismal hole with freezing water spraying out over them, following up
the leaks, caulking joint after joint, but when at last they got to the
top, plugging oakum into the final crack, the water rose still higher
and started to pour down their necks from between the ceiling and
the deck beams overhead where they could not get to it. They could
do no more. At five a.m., each man a mass of ice, they came up,
beaten.
Meanwhile, De Long, foreseeing the possibility of such a
contingency, had himself put in the rest of the night over the ship’s
plans, designing a watertight bulkhead to be built in the forepeak
just abaft that packing, so that if we could not stop the leak, we
could at least confine the flooding to a small space forward and thus
stop all pumping, either by hand or steam.
In the early morning, after twenty-four hours of continuous strain
and toil, the three of us met again in the deckhouse, I with my
sketches for the pump installation, De Long with his bulkhead plans,
and Chipp with the bad news that we had better get both jobs
underway at once for he had failed utterly to stop the leak. So we
turned to.
I will not go into what we went through the week following—my
struggles with frozen lines, improper equipment, and lack of men

and tools for such a job. Suffice it to say that after three days I got
that auxiliary Sewell pump running forward so that to the intense
relief of the deck force, their torture at the hand pumps ended
altogether, and I was able to keep the water in the forepeak so low
that Sweetman and Nindemann were enabled to start building the
bulkhead.
From then on, Nindemann and Sweetman bore the brunt. On
these two petty officers, Sweetman, our regular carpenter, and
Nindemann, our quartermaster (but almost as good as a carpenter)
fell the entire labor of building that bulkhead. In the narrow
triangular space in the peak, they toiled hour after hour, day after
day, cutting, fitting, and erecting the planking. William Nindemann, a
stocky, thickset German, was a perfect horse for work, apparently
able to stand anything; but Alfred Sweetman, a tall, spare
Englishman, had so little flesh on his ribs that he froze through
rather rapidly, and in spite of his objections, had to be dragged up
frequently to be thawed out or he would soon have broken down
completely. As it was, every four hours both men got a stiff drink of
whiskey to keep them limbered up, and as much hot coffee and food
in between as they could swallow, which was considerable.
Meanwhile, during all this turmoil and anxiety, the captain was
weighed down with the problem of what to do with the blinded
Danenhower should the water get away from us, either then or later.
To add to his worries, Dunbar, who was also still under the weather
from his illness, seemed between that and his efforts to assist, to
have aged overnight at least twenty years. It was pathetic to see the
old man, looking now positively decrepit, struggling in spite of the
captain’s orders to hold up his end alongside husky seamen, fighting
with them to help save the ship. And as if to make a complete job of
De Long’s mental anguish during that agonizing first day of the leak,
Surgeon Ambler was suddenly taken violently ill, and to the captain’s
great alarm had to be left in his cabin, practically unattended. Aside
from De Long’s natural concern over what might happen to Ambler
himself, the effect on the captain’s mind of this prospect of being left
without a doctor to look after Danenhower and any others who

might collapse in our desperate predicament, can well be imagined.
It amazed me that the captain under the combined impact of all
these worries and disasters, instead of caving in himself, maintained
at least before the men an indomitable appearance, by his actions
encouraging them, and with never a word of profanity, urging and
cheering them on.
By the end of the ensuing week things showed signs of
improvement—I had both steam pumps going, hand pumping was
discontinued, Nindemann and Sweetman against terrible odds were
making progress on the bulkhead, Dunbar was no worse, and
Ambler (whose trouble turned out to be his liver) was under his own
care, sufficiently on the mend to be no longer in danger.
Only Danenhower, aside from our leak, remained as a problem.
He, instead of getting better, got worse.
The third day of our troubles, while I was still struggling with a
frozen steam whistle line through which I was trying to get steam
forward to start my Sewell pump, there into the glacial deckhouse
beside me came our surgeon, wan and pinched and hardly able to
drag one foot after another. I gazed at him startled. He had not been
out of his bunk since his illness.
“What’s the matter, brother?” I queried anxiously. “Why aren’t you
aft in your berth where you belong? We don’t need help; we’re
getting along here beautifully.”
“Where’s the captain?” he asked, ignoring my questions. “I want
him right away.”
“Below there,” I replied, pointing down the forepeak hatch. “He’s
inspecting the work on the bulkhead. Shall I call him for you, doc?”
Apparently too weak to speak a word more than he had to,
Ambler only nodded. A little alarmed, I poked my head down the
hatch into the dark peak tank and called out to De Long standing far
below on the keelson. He looked up, I beckoned him, and he started
cautiously to climb the icy ladder, shortly to be blinking incredulously
through his frosty glasses at Ambler, even more astonished than I at

seeing him out of bed. Ambler wasted no words in explanations
regarding his presence.
“It’s Danenhower, captain. I got up as soon as I could to examine
him. His eye’s so much worse today that if I don’t operate, he’ll lose
it! So I came looking for you to get your permission first. You know
how things stand with us all.”
The captain knew, all right. It was easy to guess, looking into his
harassed eyes as Ambler talked, what was going through De Long’s
mind—a sick surgeon, poor medical facilities, a leaking ship, and the
possibility of having the patient unexpectedly thrust out on that
terrible pack to face the rigors of the Arctic, where with even good
eyes in imminent peril of freezing in their sockets at 50° below zero,
what chance for an eyeball recently sliced open? All this and more
besides was plainly enough reflected in the skipper’s woebegone
eyes and wrinkling brows. De Long thought it over slowly, then
wearily shook his head.
“I can’t give permission, doctor. It’s not Dan’s eye alone; it means
his very life if we have to leave the ship soon. And since it’s his life
against his eye we’re risking, he ought to have a voice in it. I can’t
say yes; I won’t say no. Put it up to Dan; let him decide himself.”
“Aye, aye, sir; I’ll explain it to him.” Dr. Ambler swung about, went
feebly aft, leaving the captain and me soberly regarding each other.
“You’re dead right, captain; nobody but Dan should decide. It’s too
much of a load for another man to have on his conscience if things
go wrong.”
De Long, abstractedly watching Ambler hobbling aft, hardly heard
me. Without a word in reply, he turned to the ladder behind him,
and with his tall frame sagging inside his parka as if the whole world
bore on his bent shoulders, haltingly descended it. I looked after him
pityingly. He had brought Dan, a husky, vital young man into the
Arctic; now of all times, what a weight to have on his mind as Dan’s
life hung in the balance! Unconsciously I groaned as I turned back to
thawing out my steam line and I am afraid that my mind wandered

considerably for the next hour as I played a steam hose back and
forth along that frozen length of iron pipe.
I was still at it, and still not concentrating very well, when Tong
Sing’s slant eyes peered at me through the cloud of vapor
enveloping my head and he pulled my arm to make sure he had my
attention.
“Mister Danenhower likee maybe you see him, chief.”
I shut off my steam hose, nodded to the steward, started aft. If I
could help to lighten poor Dan’s burden any, I was glad to try. But
what, I wondered, did he want of me—advice or information?
I entered Dan’s room, sidling cautiously between the double set of
blankets draping the door to shut out stray light. It was pitch-black
inside.
“That you, chief?” came a strained voice through the darkness the
minute my foot echoed on the stateroom deck.
“Yes, Dan. What is it?”
“My eye’s in horrible shape, the doctor tells me, chief. If it’s
anything like the way it hurts, I guess he understates it. What’s
happened to make it worse the last couple of days I don’t know,” he
moaned, then added bitterly, “Most likely it’s just worry. How do you
think I feel lying here useless, not lending a hand, while the rest of
you are killing yourselves trying to stop that leak and save the ship?”
I felt through the blackness for his bunk, then slid my fingers over
the blankets till I found his hand.
“Don’t let that get you, Dan,” I begged, giving his huge paw a
reassuring squeeze. “We’re making out fine with that leak. As a fact,
we got it practically licked already. It wasn’t much trouble.”
“Quit trying to fool me, chief,” pleaded Dan. “It’s no use. Maybe I
can’t see, but I can hear! So I know what’s going on around me. As
long as I hear that hand pump clanking, things are bad! And with
the skipper’s cabin right over my head and yours just across the

wardroom and me lying here twenty-four hours a day with nothing
to do but listen, don’t you think I know when you turn in? And
neither of you’ve turned in for a total of ten minutes in two nights
now! Don’t try to explain that away!”
I winced. Dan, in spite of the Stygian darkness in which he lived,
had the facts. No use glossing matters over.
“Listen, Dan, I’m not fooling you,” I answered with all the
earnestness I could muster. “It’s true we haven’t slept much, but
we’re both all right. And while things looked pretty bad at first, for a
fact, we got that leak practically licked. Before the day’s over, that
hand pump will shut down for good. Now forget us and the ship;
let’s get back to Danenhower. What can I do for you, brother?” I
gave his palm a friendly caress.
I felt Dan’s invisible hand twitch in mine, then close convulsively
on my fingers.
“I’m in a tough spot, Melville. The doctor tells me if he doesn’t
operate, I’ll go blind. And if he does, and I have to leave the ship
before my eye’s healed and he can strip the bandages, I’ll probably
die! And it’s up to me to decide which. Simple, isn’t it, chief?”
Danenhower groaned. Had I not kept my lips tightly sealed, I should
have groaned also at his pathetic question. With a lump in his
throat, he added, “I don’t want to go back blind to my f—,” he
choked the merest fraction of a second over the word, then
substituting another, I think, hastily finished—“friends, but as much
as anybody here I want to get back alive if I can. Honestly, chief,
you won’t fool a blind shipmate just to spare his feelings, will you?”
He gripped my hand fiercely. “What’re our chances with the ship?
I’ve got to know!”
“The leak’s licked, Dan,” I assured him earnestly. “We won’t sink
because of that. But about what the ice is going to do to us, your
guess is as good as mine. Seeing what she’s fought off so far, I’d
back the old Jeannette’s ribs to hold out against the pack for a while
yet.”

“Thanks, chief, for your opinion.” Dan pressed my hand once
more, then slowly relaxed his grip. “I guess I’ll have to think it over
some more before I decide. You’d better go now; sorry to have
dragged you so long from your work to worry you over my poor
carcass.”
I said nothing, I dared not, fearing that my voice would break.
With big Dan stretched out blind and helpless on his bunk, invisible
there, to me only a voice and a groping hand in the darkness, I
slipped away silently, leaving him to grapple with the choice—to
operate or not to operate—possible death in the first case, certain
blindness in the second. And with the knowledge that however he
chose, the final answer lay, not with him, but with the Arctic ice
pack. He must guess what it had in store for the Jeannette with his
sight or his life the forfeit if he guessed wrong. I went back to my
own trifling problem, thawing out the steam line.
Shortly afterward, Tong Sing came forward again, calling the
captain this time, who immediately went aft. Whether Danenhower
had decided or whether he was seeking further information, the
steward did not know. I worked in suspense for the next hour till De
Long returned. One look at his face informed me how Dan had
decided.
“Well, brother, when’s the operation?”
“It’s over already, Melville! Successful too, the doctor says. I
watched it and helped a bit. And, chief, I hardly know which to
admire most—the skill and speed with which Ambler, weak as he
was, worked, or the nerve and heroic endurance with which Dan
stood it. He’s back in his stateroom now, all bandaged again. God
grant the ship doesn’t go out from under us before those bandages
are ready to come off!”
Well, that was that. With a somewhat lighter heart, I resumed
blowing steam on my frozen line. De Long crawled back into the
forepeak to resume his study of the leak.

But my happier frame of mind did not last. If it was not one thing
on the Jeannette to drive us to distraction, it was a couple of others.
The captain soon squirmed back through the hatch with a long face
to join me again beside the deck pump.
“How much coal have we got in our bunkers, now, chief?” he
asked.
“Eighty-three tons and a fraction,” I answered promptly. I felt that
I knew almost every lump of coal in our bunkers by name, so to
speak.
“And what are we burning now?” he continued.
“A ton a day, captain, to run our pumps and for all other purposes,
but as soon as that bulkhead’s finished and the leak’s stopped, we
ought to get down to 300 pounds again, our old allowance.”
De Long shook his head sadly.
“No, chief, we never will. The way the ship’s built, I see now we’ll
never get that bulkhead really tight; she’s going to keep on leaking
and we’re going to keep on pumping. But a ton of coal a day’ll ruin
us! By April, at that rate, the bunkers’ll be bare. Can’t you do
something, anything, to cut down that coal consumption?”
I thought hastily. Our main boiler, designed of course for
furnishing steam to propel the ship, was far bigger than necessary
just to run a couple of pumps, and consequently it was wasteful of
fuel. If pumping, instead of lasting only a few days more, was to be
our steady occupation, I ought to get some setup more nearly suited
to the job. Before me in the deckhouse was the little Baxter boiler I
had rigged for an evaporator. That might run the forward pump. And
looking speculatively aft through the deckhouse door, my eye fell on
our useless steam cutter, half buried in a mound of snow and ice
covering its cradle on the poop. There was a small boiler in that
cutter. Perhaps I could remove it, rig it somehow to run a pump in
the engine room. And then I might let fires die out under the main
boiler again and do the job with less coal.

Briefly I outlined my ideas to the captain, who, willing to clutch at
any straw, gave blanket approval to my making anything on the ship
over into what I would, so long as it promised to save some coal.
“Good, brother,” I promised. “As soon as I get this pump running
and knock off the hand pump, I’ll turn to with the black gang and try
to rig up those small boilers so we can shut down that big coal hog.
And even if we have to hook up Ah Sam’s teakettle to help out on
the steam, we’ll get her shut down; you can lay to that!”
“I’m sure you will, chief,” answered De Long gratefully. “Now is
there any way we can help you out with the deck force?”
“Only by plugging away on those leaks, captain. We’re making
3300 gallons of salt water an hour in leakage; every gallon of that
you plug off means so much more coal left in the bunkers.”
“I well appreciate that, Melville. Nindemann and his mate are
doing what they can with the bulkhead; I’m starting Cole and the
deck watch to shoving down ashes and picked felt between the
frames and the ceilings in the forepeak to stop the flow of water
there. We’ll get something on that leak, I don’t know yet how much,
but we’ll never get her tight. I see that now.”
And De Long, looking (though he tried to conceal it) as if that
sight were breaking his heart, crawled back again to the freezing
forepeak. I felt strongly tempted to seize him by the arm and start
him instead for his bunk, but I was afraid he would urge the same
on me and I had to get that line thawed and the Sewell pump going
forward before I knocked off, so I let him go.

CHAPTER XXI
January dragged away, followed in dreary succession by February,
March, and April, and the Jeannette drifting aimlessly with the pack,
was still solidly frozen in. Our lives were only a wearing repetition of
what had gone before—fierce cold, alarms, the roaring and tumbling
of the ice pack, tremendous squeezes and pressures from the floes,
and night and day the wheezing of the steam pumps, pumping,
forever pumping. It seemed almost a reasonable supposition to
conclude that we must have the whole Arctic Ocean nearly pumped
dry to judge by the length of time we had been at it and by the
huge masses of ice banked up against our bulwarks and spreading
out over the floes where the streams of sea water flowing from our
scuppers had frozen.
A few minor triumphs and reliefs we had, but not many. In late
January the sun came back over the horizon for the first time in
seventy-one days, to reveal that we had all bleached strangely white
in the long Arctic darkness. On the mechanical side, I had
succeeded, after many heartbreaking disappointments, in
supplanting the main boiler with the two little ones; and that, aided
by the never ending efforts of Nindemann in plugging leaks (which
had cut the hourly flow nearly in half), had resulted in gradually
reducing our coal consumption to only a quarter of a ton a day. We
shot a few bears and a few seals, which gave a welcome variety to
our diet of salt beef and tasteless canned meat; we even had hopes
of knocking down some birds but there we were disappointed.
“No, Melville,” the captain gravely rebuked me, when empty-
handed I returned to the ship after a February tramp over the floes
and pushed my shotgun disgustedly into the rack, “birds have more
sense than men. No bird with a well-regulated mind would possibly
trust himself out in this temperature.”

On the debit side, the temperatures reached unbelievable depths.
57° below zero was recorded by our thermometers (the spirit ones,
for the mercurial bulbs froze solidly at around -40°). The pack ice
reached thicknesses of thirty-five and forty feet below the water
where underrunning floes, freezing together, consolidated into a kind
of glacial layer cake. Contemplation of these formations, measurable
whenever the floes near us cracked apart, gave a gloomy aspect to
the ship’s chances of ever getting free of the pack. And the irregular
and formidable surface of the pack also gave us cause for thought,
now that in the growing daylight we could see in what state the
upheaval of January 19th had left the ice around us. Sledging across
the pack was impossible; as soon might one think of getting from
the Bronx to Brooklyn by dragging a team of dogs and a sledge over
the Manhattan housetops. Here and there, conditions were even
worse. Sharvell, with the impressionability of youth, came in from an
exploring trip with eyes popping to tell me,
“Say, chief, five miles north o’ ’ere, the ice is standing in
mountains ’igher nor our mast’eads!”
“Yes, Sharvell, it’s quite likely.”
“Shall I tell the skipper, sir, or will you?” he asked anxiously.
“Why bother him about it?”
“If ’e knew, it’d save work, sir. ’E’d quit ’aving the bug’unter clean
an’ mount that big walrus ’ead with the tusks that ’e’s so busy fixing
up. ’Cause when that ice gets to us, sir, we’re through, an’ it’ll be a
terrible lot o’ work for us sailors dragging that ’eavy walrus ’ead over
the pack. ’E better quit now, an’ ’e will, sir, when I tells ’im abaht
them mountains of ice!”
But I told Sharvell to forget it, for I doubted that with all his other
worries, the captain would be much exercised over mountains five
miles off.
Aside from the aspect of the ice, we had troubles closer home.
Especially forward in the deckhouse and crew spaces, the inside of
the ship which now we had to keep above the freezing point to save

our pumps from damage, was damp and disagreeable beyond
expression, with moisture condensing on all cold surfaces and
dripping from the beams into the men’s bunks.
Finally to deepen our gloom, Danenhower failed to respond
favorably to treatment, and the doctor had to perform several more
operations on his eye, coming at last to the conclusion that Dan
must, till we escaped from the ice, remain a chronic invalid confined
in darkness to his cabin, with no great hope of saving his sight even
should he then get back to happier surroundings and decent hospital
facilities.
Oddly enough through all this, after the first week’s struggle with
the leak, we continued our scientific and meteorological
observations. The captain clung to that routine as to a lifeline, which
perhaps to him mentally it was, constituting his solitary claim to
conducting a scientific expedition. For of explorations and
geographical discoveries there were none; on the contrary instead of
a steady drift northward which might uncover new lands or at least
get us to higher latitudes, we shuffled aimlessly about with the pack,
occasionally drifting northward for some weeks to De Long’s obvious
delight, only to have the drift then reversed and to his intense
depression of spirits, to turn out some clear morning to find himself
gazing once again across the pack at the familiar mountainous
outline of the north side of distant Wrangel Land. But after March,
even this sight of far-off land, depressing as it was from its
associations, was denied us, for as the season advanced the pack,
still zigzagging over the polar sea as aimlessly as ever, failed to get
quite so far south again; from that time on we saw land no more
and the world for us became just one vast unbroken field of broken
ice.
Only one hope kept us going. No one really knew what happened
to that moving pack in summer time—no one before us had ever
wintered in it, involuntarily or otherwise. So we lived on in the
expectation that as the days lengthened and the thermometer rose
above zero, summer weather and the long days under the midnight

sun would sufficiently melt the ice to break up the pack, and if by
then we still had any coal left, permit us to do some little exploring
northward before with bare bunkers we loosed our sails and in the
early fall laid our course homeward.
In that spirit then, we cheerfully greeted the advent of May, and
as if to justify our confidence, May Day burst upon us with gorgeous
weather—no clouds, and glistening at us across the ice a brilliant
sun which even at midnight still peeped pleasantly over the horizon,
and a temperature which in mid-afternoon reached the unbelievable
height of 30° F., only two degrees below freezing. We were positively
hot. All hands (except of course Danenhower) turned out on the ice
to bask in the sunshine, with the queer result that many of us came
back aboard with our complexions sunburned to a fiery red and
unable at first to believe it. Our hopes started to mount; if the sun
could do that to such weather-beaten frost-bitten hides as ours,
what would it not do to the ice imprisoning us? Release was
seemingly just around the corner of the calendar—by June 1 at the
outside, say.
But meanwhile, awaiting that happy event, the captain prudently
ordered (lest more casualties go to join the luckless Danenhower)
that snow goggles be worn on all occasions by all hands except
when actually below on the ship.
So May moved along, made notable mainly by a positive flood of
bears, which daily kept us on the jump. The bears, ravenous with
hunger after a long winter, were attracted to the Jeannette by
mingled scents, mainly canine, which to their untutored nostrils
probably meant food. But we had long since lost any fear of ice
bears and the dogs apparently never had any, so the cry of—
“Bear ho!”
was the immediate signal for whoever had the captain’s
permission (which now meant practically anyone off watch) to seize
a rifle from the rack placed conveniently at the gangway, and be off.
We became so contemptuous of the bears, that we chased them

even with revolvers, and if necessity had arisen, would no doubt
have done so barehanded, for I have never seen a bear which would
rush a man. Except when brought to by the dogs, with a man in
sight all that ever interested the bear was to get behind the nearest
hummock or into an open lead, where swimming with only his nose
above water, he could escape the rain of bullets from our
Remingtons and Winchesters. The vitality of the bears was amazing.
Unless filled so full of lead that the mere weight of the bullets as
ballast slowed them down enough for the dogs to bring them to a
stand where a close range shot into the brain finished them off, they
usually got away.
We had queer experiences with the bears. On one occasion,
exploring one of the narrow leads in the pack about a quarter of a
mile from the ship, the captain was sculling unconcernedly along in
the dinghy when he found himself facing an ice bear not a hundred
feet off. Wholly unarmed, De Long regarded the bear with dismay.
He could not run, for over broken ice he was no match in speed for
Ursus; besides he was in a boat, which prevented running away, for
while the water was an obstacle to him, to the bear it was merely
the most convenient means of transportation. Inquisitively the bear
advanced; De Long, unable to do anything else, sat and stared,
trying out the power of the human eye as a defence. The bear, only
fifty feet off, still approached, sniffing curiously and De Long, short-
sighted though he was, said he could clearly make out where the
short hairs ended at the edge of the bear’s beautiful black nose. The
captain quickly concluded there was nothing in hypnosis as applied
to polar bears. So gripping his oar, prepared to fend off the bear
should he approach closer to the boat, he sang out lustily,
“Ship there! A bear! A bear!”
At this, the bear, more puzzled than ever, sat down on the ice to
contemplate De Long and was still seriously thinking him over, trying
to make him out, when a pack of dogs hove into sight from under
the Jeannette’s stern, followed by several seamen, and off lumbered
the bear.

So long as we had the Jeannette under us, the plethora of bears
meant at most only a break in the monotony of our existence and a
welcome change in our salt beef diet. Should we have to abandon
ship, however, they offered a ray of hope. For convinced now that
we could never drag across the upheaved pack pemmican enough to
keep us from starvation till we reached Siberia, we looked on the
bears as a possible source of fresh meat on the hoof which we might
with a little luck knock over as we went along and thus keep life in
our bodies.
The only other springtime event to compare with the bears was a
brilliant idea which struck De Long.
While he never discussed his family with me or with anyone, De
Long, alone among the ship’s company which had sailed from San
Francisco, had a wife and a child to occupy his thoughts. I have no
doubt that frequently in the dreary months when I saw him, as I did
one morning, abstractedly gazing out over the pack, his mind was
far away from us, perhaps dwelling on that moment in the tossing
whaleboat off the Golden Gate when Emma De Long had to the last
possible instant clung round his neck in her farewell kiss. Drifting
backward down the years from that, his thoughts on this morning
evidently got to the days of his youth as an ensign aboard the U.S.S.
Canandaigua. While cruising through the Channel ports, he had
amongst the dikes and mills of northern France and Holland courted
Emma Wotton, and as he thought of that landscape, so different
from the ice-fields round the Jeannette, his keen mind saw a
connection. He waved me to join him.
“Melville,” he asked, obviously off again on the one ever-present
topic, coal, “what’ll you do to keep your pumps going when the
coal’s all gone?”
I pointed aloft.
“Cut down our masts and spars and burn them,” I replied.
“They’re useless anyway.”

“And when they’ve gone too, what then?” De Long’s clear blue
eyes gazed at me fixedly, as if he had me there.
“Break up our bulwarks, the deckhouses, and the main deck, and
shove those into the fires too. They’ll all burn fine.”
“And after that, what?” he asked relentlessly, puffing away on his
ever-present pipe.
“I guess then we abandon what’s left of the Jeannette and take to
the ice, captain. I’ll admit I can’t keep any boilers going while I’m
cutting the foundations out from under them for firewood. When the
main deck’s gone, I guess we’re through.”
De Long looked gravely at me through his glasses, bent his head a
little to shield his pipe from the cold wind sweeping the deck, and
irrelevantly asked me,
“Melville, have you ever been in Holland?”
“Why—yes,” I mumbled, taken aback at his sudden change of
front. “I guess it’s tulip time there now, captain. And quite a different
scene from all this ice that’s sprouting round us in the merry
springtime here. Why?”
“I was there in the springtime once also,” parried the captain.
“Lovely scene. I just wonder if we couldn’t make the scenery round
here resemble Holland in the springtime a little better. You
remember the tulips, eh, chief? Do you by any chance remember
anything else in the Dutch landscape—some windmills, for
instance?”
And then a great light dawned on me. I looked at my captain with
added respect. What did the Dutch have all those thousands of
windmills for except to meet the same problem we faced—to pump
water!
“Ah, you see it, do you?” asked the captain, gratified. “Melville,
can you rig up a windmill here to run our pumps?”

“Can do, brother!” I exclaimed enthusiastically. “I’ll turn to on it
right away; before long you’ll see a windmill going round here in the
Arctic to beat the Dutch!”
This job was rather intricate for our facilities, windmills not being
exactly in a sailor’s line, but aided by Lee, machinist, and Dressler,
blacksmith, we contrived it. Lee especially was a great help, which
might seem somewhat surprising, for having been shot through both
hips in the second day’s fighting while helping Grant drive back
Beauregard at Shiloh, Lee was rather slow and unsteady on his feet.
But there was nothing the matter with his hands and he soon had
Dressler’s crude forgings turned up in our lathe into a crankshaft and
connecting rods, so that by the time Sweetman had made the
wooden arms of the windmill, we were ready to go. Paradoxically,
the one thing which on a ship we were best prepared to furnish, the
sails themselves, failed to work well on our first trial. The mill
occasionally hung on the center because the heavy canvas sails
sagged too much to hold the wind. Chipp, responsible for making
the sails, watched them in pained silence, but having no canvas
more suitable, soon rectified the matter in a novel manner. Sending
Noros and Erichsen down on the ice, he had them collect some
dozens of the empty meat cans littering the ice floes, and beating
these out flat, he laced them together with wire, and soon had our
mill-arms covered with fine metal sails! Impelled by these, our
windmill, mounted on the starboard wing of the bridge, was soon
rotating merrily and, connected by a special rig to a bilge pump in
the fireroom, was pushing overboard in grand style all our leakage.
So well did it work, that we quickly were enabled to shut down the
steam cutter’s boiler, leaving only the little Baxter boiler going for
distilling and in case the wind died down (which in the pack it rarely
did) for unavoidable steam pumping.
So to our intense relief as spring drew on to its close, we got our
coal consumption down again to 300 pounds a day, as it had been
before that leak started to chew into our bunkers in such ravenous
fashion. Which was a very fortunate thing for us, for with only sixty
tons of coal left to go on, our days on the Jeannette would indeed

otherwise have been numbered. Not least among the blessings
which resulted was the improved cheerfulness of De Long at this
success. He once more began to have some hope that when the ice
broke up, we would have coal enough to do some exploring, so that
he might again without too much shame on his return face our
sponsor’s sister, Miss Bennett, the ship’s godmother, the “Jeannette”
whose name we bore.
As the long days dragged out under the May sun, we eagerly
watched the floes, noting with satisfaction the increasing number of
rivulets coursing toward every crack and hole in the pack, and how
under the intense sunlight, the cinders and ashes about the ship
fairly seemed to burrow their way down into the snow. (Watching
the striking manner in which everything dark soaked up the sunshine
and settled, De Long half-humorously suggested that we all take a
day off and pray for some miracle which might make all the snow
and ice about us black and thus hasten its disappearance.)
And so we came to May 31, to our discouragement still held in the
unbroken pack which, as measurements close about us showed, was
still four feet thick. We decided to defer the day of our liberation to
July 1, giving the sun another month to work on the ice. But to
damp our spirits, June 1, the first day of summer as we reckoned it,
opened in a snow storm which continued through June 2 also,
accompanied by a heavy gale which drove the snow, soft and mushy
now, along in horizontal sheets.
When the snow finally ceased, the captain, optimistic again, began
to prepare for the day of our release. First of all, fires were
discontinued in the stoves fore and aft, thus saving a little coal.
Next, all hands and the cook were turned to on knocking down our
portable deckhouse and clearing the main deck, so that looking like
a ship once more, we might be able to spread sails and get
underway when the wind served (provided, of course, the ice let go
of us first). Several days’ hard work accomplished this task, and with
the topside shipshape again, we needed only to hang our rudder to

be fully ready to go, but here again we had to wait on the ice which
still clung solidly to our rudder post.
Below, I got my machinery and boilers in shape to move. With no
fear of dangerous temperatures any more, I connected up all piping,
moved the engines by hand, secured all cylinder heads, and filled
both boilers to the steaming level (through the sea cocks this time),
and started generally to clean up the machinery spaces. For a small
black gang, only six all told, this was slow work, so to avoid being
caught with the pack suddenly parting and my machinery not ready
to turn over, I pushed my gang hard. Consequently I was doubly
annoyed when I noted several times that Nelse Iversen, one of my
coalheavers and ordinarily a willing enough worker, showed decided
signs of soldiering whenever my back was turned. I cautioned
Bartlett who had charge of his watch, to get Iversen started, but
after another hour, seeing he still tended to hide in the bunkers
rather than scale rusty floorplates, I yanked Iversen up sharply for it.
“Come to now, Nelse, and get behind that scaling hammer! Or will
it take a little extra duty to keep you out of that bunker and on the
job?”
Iversen, now that I got a closer look at him, looked queer in the
eyes, so when, his slow mind having digested my statement, he
finally answered, I was quite ready to believe him.
“Ay tank, chief, Ay work so hard Ay can. Ay ban sick man. My
belly, she ache bad!”
“So, eh?” I said sympathetically. “Why didn’t you tell Bartlett that
an hour ago? Go up and see the doctor right away. What ails you,
diarrhoea again?”
“No; de odder way.”
“Constipation, huh? Well, you’re lucky. On this bucket, that’s a
better thing to have than diarrhoea any day. Go up to the doctor and
get some castor oil. And don’t come back till it’s quit working.” I
eased him over toward the fireroom ladder, and started him on his
way toward Ambler.

But after a day had elapsed, I began to wonder whether the
doctor’s castor oil had somehow been affected by the cold or
whether my coalheaver had evaded swallowing his dose, for Iversen
still showed the same tendency to shirk work and hide in the
bunkers in spite of Bartlett’s frequently breaking him out of there. So
taking Iversen in hand myself, I escorted him up to the dispensary to
see personally that there was no foolishness about his taking his
medicine, and calling Tong Sing, I sent him off to find the doctor
who was out on the ice.
The minute Tong Sing disappeared, Iversen poked his head out
the door, looked both ways quickly, then as if satisfied, hastily shut
the door and to my complete bewilderment, stealthily approached
me, cupped his hands over my ear and whispered,
“Chief, Ay no ban sick, Ay ban vatched! Dere ban mutiny on foot
here!”
Mutiny? I stared at Iversen incredulously. The men were having a
veritable hell in their life there in the Arctic, but what could they gain
by mutiny? And who would lead it? For an instant I had a vague
suspicion, but I resolutely put that out of my mind. Preposterous! I
looked at Iversen intently. But there could be no doubt as to his
sincerity. He was serious, all right.
I pushed him down into a chair, ordered sharply,
“Wait there, Nelse! I’ll get the captain!” and closing the door
behind me, I shot out of the dispensary and across the cabin to the
captain’s stateroom forward in the poop. Fortunately De Long was
there, writing in his journal.
“Come with me, skipper. I want you to hear something. Right
away!”
Puzzled unquestionably at my haste, De Long dropped his pen,
put down his meerschaum pipe, stretched his six-foot frame up out
of his chair, and reached for his parka.

“No, you don’t need that, captain; just as you are. We’re only
going to the dispensary.”
“Oh, all right. Who’s hurt now?”
“Nobody, but come along!” I started back for the dispensary with
De Long following, puffing leisurely at the retrieved meerschaum
which was his greatest comfort and his inseparable companion.
Iversen started up from his chair as we entered, saluted the
captain, and again swiftly scanned the cabin outside before he
closed the door.
“Now, Nelse, tell the captain,” I said briefly.
Once more Iversen cupped his hands, whispered into the captain’s
ear. De Long’s jaw dropped abruptly. His pipe fell from his mouth
and only by a quick lunge did I save it from hitting the deck. But
insensible to that, De Long, immovable, only stared at Iversen,
searching his face as I had done. Finally he shook his head,
muttered,
“It just can’t be! Where’d you get this, Iversen?”
“Yah, cap’n. Ay tal you it ban yust lak Ay say! Ay ban asked to
yoin. Ay no say, Yah; Ay no say, No; so Ay ban vatched clost. Dey kill
me for’ard if Ay tal!”
De Long looked at me. I handed him back his pipe, which, wholly
unconscious of his action, he took.
“What do you make of this, chief? It looks serious if Iversen’s
right!”
“Sounds crazy to me, but it might be so. Depends on who’s in it
and how many. The men are all armed, you know. The rifle rack’s
right at the gangway. Anybody can help himself, and lots of ’em are
out on the ice, guns in hand this minute. But why they should want
to mutiny, I can’t see, unless the ice has affected their minds.”
Shocked at Iversen’s report; impressed by the gravity of the
situation if Iversen were right, for there already with weapons in

their hands were the mutineers, the captain still looked skeptically at
my grimy coalheaver. Why should his crew mutiny? But on the other
hand, what had Iversen to gain by lying about it? And Iversen, a
steady man, always carefully attentive to his duty, was just the type
of seaman who might be trusted to stand with his captain at all
hazards.
“Well,” said De Long grimly, “let’s get into this! Now, Iversen,
who’s behind it?”
But there the captain ran into a stone wall. Iversen, very nervous
now, became evasive, dodged the questions, and apparently in
mortal fear of his life, refused to name the mutineers, repeating only
over and over again how, for two days, he had been closely
watched. Threats, promises, got nothing more out of him. Finally the
captain, baffled, took a new tack.
“See here, Iversen, they can’t hurt you, and nobody else’ll get
hurt either if you tell. I can manage it then. There are eight officers
here; surely there are some of the crew will join us! I’ll get all the
mutineers, if you’ll name them, out on the ice on some pretext. I
don’t care if they do go armed. Then we’ll haul in the gangway and
from behind the bulwarks we can hold the ship! A couple of nights
freezing on that ice will bring them round, all right! They’ll come
cringing back, hands in the air, begging to be taken aboard. Out with
it now! Who’s the leader?”
Iversen, more nervous than ever, shuffled to the door, opened it a
crack to assure himself no one was eavesdropping outside, then
faced us, and tremblingly blurted out,
“Sharvell!”
An amazing change came over the captain. He dropped into a
chair, roared with laughter.
“Sharvell? That’s rich! That lad? He’s not even a man yet!
Nobody’d follow him in a mutiny any more than a child! Hah, hah!”
But abruptly he stopped laughing, for Iversen was now weeping
hysterically, tears running down his coal-stained cheeks. Soberly De

Long looked at him, then took me by the sleeve, pulled me aside a
little, and whispered,
“I guess the mutiny on the Jeannette’s over, chief. I thought there
was somebody crazy in it, and now I know who. Send for the doctor,
quick! I’ll stay here with Iversen.” He started to light his pipe again.
“I’ve already got the steward out looking for him, captain,” I
replied. “Ambler ought to be here any minute. And I guess you’re
dead right, brother! Poor Iversen!”
It was so. Immediately Surgeon Ambler came aboard, we turned
the weeping coalheaver over to him. An hour later, when, after a
careful examination, Iversen under Cole’s surveillance had been led
forward, he confirmed our fears. Iversen, if not already insane, was
trembling on the border of it. Only observation over several days
could prove which. De Long, much relieved at first by freedom from
dread of any mutiny, was nevertheless badly enough depressed by
the doctor’s report.
“First a blinded officer,” he muttered, “now a crazy seaman!
What’ll this ice do to us next?”

CHAPTER XXII
June 21st came, the longest day in the year. Further south, to
ordinary people, that meant more daylight; to us, with daylight
twenty-four hours every day, it meant only that the sun stood on the
Tropic of Cancer, having reached his most northerly declination.
Ruefully we considered that. The sun was as far north as possible,
as high in our heavens as he would ever get, though even so, at
noon he stood not so high, only about 40° above the horizon. We
would never receive his rays any more direct; instead, from now on
they would become even more slanting, and less hot as he went
south. And we were still held in the ice. Our case for release began
to look less hopeful, and we went around that day with cheerless
faces. Long afterward, picked out of the Siberian snows, I salvaged
the captain’s journal and looking through it was particularly
impressed by what he put down for June 21, 1880. So aptly did he
express the situation and our feelings of desolation that day, that I
repeat it here.
“June 21st, 1880. Monday.
“Discouraging, very. And yet my motto is ‘Hope on,
hope ever.’ A very good one it is when one’s surroundings
are more natural than ours; but situated as we are it is
better in the abstract than in realization. There can be no
greater wear and tear on a man’s mind and patience than
this life in the pack. The absolute monotony; the
unchanging round of hours; the awakening to the same
things and the same conditions that one saw just before
losing one’s self in sleep; the same faces; the same dogs;
the same ice; the same conviction that tomorrow will be
exactly the same as today, if not more disagreeable; the
absolute impotence to do anything, to go anywhere, or to
change one’s situation an iota; the realization that food is

being consumed and fuel burned with no valuable result,
beyond sustaining life; the knowledge that nothing has
been accomplished thus far to save this expedition from
being denominated an utter failure; all these things crowd
in with irresistible force on my reasoning power each night
as I sit down to reflect on the events of the day, and but
for some still small voice within me that tells me this can
hardly be the ending of all my labor and zeal, I should be
tempted to despair.
“All our books are read, our stories related; our games
of chess, cards, and checkers long since discontinued.
When we assemble in the morning at breakfast, we make
daily a fresh start. Any dreams, amusing or peculiar, are
related and laughed over. Theories as to whether we shall
eventually drift northeast or northwest are brought
forward and discussed. Seals’ livers as a change of diet
are pronounced a success. The temperature of the
morning watch is inquired into, the direction and velocity
of the wind, and if it is snowing (as it generally is) we call
it a ‘fine summer day.’ After breakfast, we smoke. Chipp
gets a sounding and announces a drift east-southeast or
southeast, as the case may be. We growl thereat. Dunbar
and Alexey go off for seals with as many dogs as do not
run away from them en route. The doctor examines
Danenhower and Iversen, his two chronic patients.
Melville draws a little for this journal, sings a little, and
stirs everybody up to a realization that it is daytime.
Danenhower (from his stateroom) talks incessantly—on
any and all subjects, with or without an audience. The
doctor moralizes between observations; I smoke; Mr.
Newcomb makes his preparations for dredging specimens;
Mr. Collins has not appeared, his usual hour being 12:30 in
the afternoon. Meanwhile the men have been set at work;
a sled and dogs are dispatched for the day’s snow for
washing purposes. The day’s rations are served out to the

cook, and then we commence to drift out on the ice to dig
ditches, to look at the dogs, calculate the waste in the ice
since yesterday, and the probable amount by tomorrow.
The dredge is lowered and hauled. I get the sun at
meridian, and we go to dinner. After dinner, more smoke,
more drawing, more singing, more talk, more ditch and
canal-making, more hunting, more dog inspection, and
some attempts at napping until four p.m., when we are all
around for anything that may turn up. At 5:30 time and
azimuth sight, post position in cabin, make chart, go to
supper at six, and discuss our drift, and then smoke, talk
and general kill-time occupations till ten p.m., when the
day is ended. The noise subsides; those who can, go to
bed; I write the log and my journal, make the
observations for meteorology till midnight. Mr. Collins
succeeds me four hours, Chipp him four hours, the doctor
next four hours, Mr. Collins next six hours, I next two
hours, Melville next two hours, and I end the day again,
and so it goes.
“Our meals necessarily have a sameness. Canned meat,
salt beef, salt pork, and bear meat have the same taste at
one time as another. Each day has its bill of fare, but after
varying it for a week we have, of course, to commence
over again. Consequently we have it by heart, and know
what we are going to get before we sit down at table.
Sometimes the steward startles us with a potato salad
(potatoes now rotting too fast for our consumption), or a
seal’s liver, or a bear’s tongue; but we generally are not
disturbed in that way. Our bill of fare is ample and good,
our water is absolutely pure, and our fresh bread is
something marvelous. Though disappointed day after day
we are cheerful and healthy, and—here we are.”
And to all that I can fervently say “Amen!”

June on the whole was chilly and disagreeable. The temperature
rarely got above 32° F., and yet in spite of that the ice did keep on
wasting, from direct absorption of sunlight, of course. The ship came
up somewhat through the softening ice to a lighter draft, owing to
our considerable consumption of coal and stores since late
November when we were frozen in after our transit of the ice-canal.
But as an offset to this cheering rise, she heeled gradually more to
starboard, adding to our discomfort.
Meanwhile, De Long kept Dunbar, who naturally was a good
walker, scouting far and wide over the pack looking for open leads,
which might promise a break-up of the pack and a chance of escape
through one of them. June 28th, Dunbar, duck-hunting in the dinghy
in a little lead about a mile from the ship, came back in the late
afternoon with thirteen ducks, but with what was far more exciting,
the news that the lead had suddenly opened up, that he had
followed it (open here and there to a width of half a mile) at least
fifteen miles before turning round. And from there it still stretched
northward as far as he could see!
De Long was immediately all excitement. If only we could get the
Jeannette across that single mile of solid ice between, there was no
telling how far north we might go along that lead! He dragged Chipp
into his cabin and went over with him the possibilities of blasting out
the intermediate ice. While Chipp was calculating how far our supply
of gunpowder would take us, De Long, eager to size up the situation
on the spot, hastily departed to examine the lead for himself.
About midnight, he came back into the cabin, tossed his parka
onto the table. Chipp, surrounded by a sea of papers containing his
computations on the explosive powers of gunpowder, handed the
captain a sheet containing his conclusions. De Long pushed it aside
without even a glance.
“Never mind, Chipp, we won’t need it. I got there just in time to
watch that lead close up so tight you can’t get a toothpick into it
now! At least I had the melancholy satisfaction of realizing that if the

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