[Exchange.]
    Sledge-dogs need no urging with the whip when their instinct informs them that they are on unsafe ice.
    They flee onwards at the speed which alone can save and, as was experienced repeatly by Dr. Hayes, instead of keeping the sledges together in a compact body, they diverge and separate, so as to distribute the weight over as large an area as possible. When they begin to find themselves menaced by this danger, and the prospect ahead appears to them unuaually threatening, “They tremble, lie down, and refuse to go further.”
    Most arctic explorers tell of hairbreath escapes from treacherous ice, when they have owned their preservation to the sagacity of their dogs. Wrangell relates an incident of this nature:
    “Our first care was to examine the possibility of further advance; this, however, could only be done by trusting to the thin ice of the channel, and opinions were divided as to the possibility of its bearing us. I determined to try; and the adventure succeeded better than could have been hoped for, owing to the incredibly swift running of the dogs, to which doubtless we owed our safety. The leading sledge actually broke through in several places; but the dogs, warned, no doubt, of the danger by their natural instinct, and animated by the incessant cries and encouragement of the driver, flew so rapidly over the yielding ice, that we reached the other side without actually sinking through. The other three sledges followed with similar rapidity each across such part as appeared to be the most promising; and we were now all assembled in safety on the north side of the fissure. It was necessary to halt for a time, to allow the dogs to recover a little from their extraordinary exertions.”
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