Fortunately the coal supply was in the form of briquets, coal tiles nine inches broad, quite like ordinary bricks in shape. Thus went up the most remarkable construction in the annals of polar history, a house of coal on a foundation of ice. The _Hansa_ was moored to one of the so-called paleocrystic floe-bergs several square miles in extent, nearly fifty feet thick, with fresh-water ponds and an uplifted central mass thirty-nine feet high, near which hill the coal house was built to insure its safety. With water from the pools to pour on the finely powdered snow, the arctic masons had a cement that quickly bound together the tiles as they were laid in courses. The ship's spars were laid crossways for the main rafters, and other wood was used for the completion of the roof-frame, over which were stretched reed mattings and sail-cloth. Coal tiles made a level and convenient floor, whence in case of necessity they might draw for fuel in the late winter. With a double door and provision caches in the house they awaited the action of the pack, still comfortable in the ship's cabins. With joy the hunters learned that the ice-field was not wholly desolate, but that it was the hunting-field of the polar bear, who was followed by the arctic fox, who deftly snapped up under bruin's very nose any outlying bit of seal that was within reach. In the early days, before the pack had become an unbroken ice-mass, a hunter espied on an adjacent floe a large she bear with her cub. A boat was quickly put off to cross the narrow water-lane, when to the surprise of every one the old bear, followed by the cub, rushed forward to meet them at the edge of the floe, gnashing her teeth and licking her chops, clearly unfamiliar with man and his weapons and anxious for a meal. As they fired the bear fell dead on the snow, but the cub instead of running remained by her side licking and caressing her mother in the most affectionate manner. She paid no attention at first to the advancing hunters, save to alertly elude the many efforts to cast a noose over her head. Finally the cub became alarmed, and with piteous howlings ran away, escaping over the rugged pack despite a shot which wounded her. In the middle of October came a series of violent blizzards which foretold the coming fate of the ship. The groaning, grinding ice-field was breaking up under enormous pressures that came from the colliding floe-bergs, which were revolving under various forces of wind and sea currents. Though trembling violently, with her masts swaying to and fro, the _Hansa_ was spared, great fissures in the floe near by showing how close was her escape. All of the crew were busy preparing for the worst, fuel, food, and clothing being carried in quantities to the house.