Farthest North Volume I Part 22

[15] This oil, by means of a specially constructed steam-jet apparatus, was injected into the furnaces in the form of a fine spray, where it burned in a very economical and saving manner, giving forth a great amount of heat. The apparatus was one which has been applied to locomotives in England, whence it was procured. It appeared, however, that it tended to overheat the boiler at one particular point, where it made a dent, so that we soon abandoned this method of firing.

[16] I had thought of procuring dogs from the Eskimo of Greenland and Hudson Bay, but there proved to be insuperable difficulties in the way of getting them conveyed from there.

[17] These depots were arranged most carefully, and every precaution so well taken that we certainly should not have suffered from famine had we gone there. In the northernmost depot at Stan Durnova on the west coast of Kotelnoi, at 75 37' N. L., we should have found provisions for a week; with these we could easily have made our way 65 miles southward along the coast to the second depot at Ura.s.salach, where, in a house built by Baron Von Toll in 1886, we should have found provisions for a whole month. Lastly, a third depot in a house on the south side of Little Liakhoff Island, with provisions for two months, would have enabled us to reach the mainland with ease.

[18] Both Hovland, who piloted us from Christiania to Bergen, and Johan Hgensen, who took us from Bergen to Vardo, were most kindly placed at the disposal of the expedition by the Nordenfjeldske Steamship Company, of Trondhjem.

[19] English in the original.

[20] English in the original.

[21] The ordinary male dog is liable to get inflammation of the s.c.r.o.t.u.m from the friction of the trace.

[22] Ya.s.sak is a tax paid in fur by the Siberians.

[23] This disease is probably anthrax, or something of the same nature

[24] By this he probably means our organ. Our other musical instruments were as follows: An accordion, belonging to the ship, and a flute, violin, and several Jew's-harps, belonging to one of the ship's company.

[25] It will be observed that there is some slip of memory here--it was the evening before.

[26] It was, in fact, the day after.

[27] I do not believe that Christofersen ever in his life had anything to do with a London newspaper.

[28] There is a white reflection from white ice, so that the sky above fields of ice has a light or whitish appearance; wherever there is open water it is blue or dark. In this way the Arctic navigator can judge by the appearance of the sky what is the state of the sea at a considerable distance.

[29] It is true that in his account of the voyage he expressly states that the continued very thick fog "prevented us from doing more than mapping out most vaguely the islands among and past which the Vega sought her way."

[30] Later, when I had investigated the state of matters outside Nordenskiold's Taimur Island, it seemed to me that the same remark applied here with even better reason, as no sledge expedition could go round the coast of this island without seeing Almquist's Islands, which lie so near, for instance, to Cape Lapteff, that they ought to be seen even in very thick weather. It would be less excusable to omit marking these islands, which are much larger, than to omit the small ones lying off the coast of the large island (or as I now consider it, group of large islands) we were at present skirting.

[31] In his account of his voyage Nordenskiold writes as follows of the condition of this channel: "We were met by only small quant.i.ties of that sort of ice which has a layer of fresh-water ice on the top of the salt, and we noticed that it was all melting fjord or river ice. I hardly think that we came all day on a single piece of ice big enough to have cut up a seal upon."

[32] Peter Henriksen.

[33] This silk bag-net is intended to be dragged after a boat or ship to catch the living animals or plant organisms at various depths. We used them constantly during our drifting, sinking them to different depths under the ice, and they often brought up rich spoils.

[34] This phosph.o.r.escence is princ.i.p.ally due to small luminous crustacea (Copepoda).

[35] Markham's account gives us to understand that on the north side of Grinnell Land he came across hummocks which measured 43 feet. I do not feel at all certain that these were not in reality icebergs; but it is no doubt possible that such hummocks might be formed by violent pressure against land or something resembling it. After our experience, however, I cannot believe in the possibility of their occurring in open sea.

[36] On a later occasion they bored down 30 feet without reaching the lower surface of the ice.

[37] When we had fire in the stoves later, especially during the following winter, there was not a sign of damp anywhere--neither in saloon nor small cabins. It was, if anything, rather too dry, for the panels of the walls and roof dried and shrank considerably.

[38] Apparently modelled on the t.i.tle of the well-known magazine, Kringsjaa, which means "A Look Around" or "Survey." Framsjaa might be translated "The Fram's Lookout."

[39] The name Peter Henriksen generally went by on board.

[40] Refers to the fact that Amundsen hated card-playing more than anything else in the world. He called cards "the devil's playbooks."

[41] Nickname of our meteorologist, Johansen, Professor Mohn being a distinguished Norwegian meteorologist.

[42] This signature proved to be forged, and gave rise to a lawsuit so long and intricate that s.p.a.ce does not permit an account of it to be given.

[43] He says "ei borsja" for "a gun" instead of "en bosse."

[44] This was the nickname of the starboard four-berth cabin.

[45] A Norwegian newspaper.

[46] In spite of this bending of the strata, the surface of the ice and snow remained even.

[47] So we called some light trousers of thin close cotton, which we used as a protection against the wind and snow.

[48] This gull is often called by this name, after its first discoverer. It has acquired its other name, "rose gull," from its pink color.

[49] Up to now they had their kennels on deck.

[50] The anniversary of the Norwegian Const.i.tution.

[51] Without the mark of the "union" with Sweden.

[52] "Normal arbeidsdage" = normal working-day.

[53] The pet name of the cooking-range in the galley.

[54] Up to this day I am not quite clear as to what these emblems were intended to signify. That the doctor, from want of practice, would have been glad of a normal day's work ("normal Arbeidsdag") can readily be explained, but why the meteorologists should cry out for universal suffrage pa.s.ses my comprehension. Did they want to overthrow despotism?

[55] With reference to the resolution of the Storthing, on June 9, 1880.

[56] It was seal, walrus, and bear's flesh from last autumn, which was used for the dogs. During the winter it had been hung up in the ship, and was still quite fresh. But henceforth it was stored on the ice until, before autumn set in, it was consumed. It is remarkable how well meat keeps in these regions. On June 28th we had reindeer-steak for dinner that we had killed on the Siberian coast in September of the previous year.

[57] The same kind of dust that I found on the ice on the east coast of Greenland, which is mentioned in the Introduction to this book, p. 39.

[58] This dust, which is to be seen in summer on the upper surface of almost all polar ice of any age, is no doubt, for the most part, dust that hovers in the earth's atmosphere. It probably descends with the falling snow, and gradually acc.u.mulates into a surface layer as the snow melts during the summer. Larger quant.i.ties of mud, however, are also often to be found on the ice, which strongly resemble this dust in color, but are doubtless more directly connected with land, being formed on floes that have originally lain in close proximity to it. (Compare Wissensch. Ergebnisse von Dr. F. Nansens Durchquerung von Gronland. Erganzungsheft No. 105 zu Petermanns Mittheilungen.)

[59] I have not yet had time to examine them closely.

[60] We always had a line, with a net at the end, hanging out, in order to see the direction we were drifting, or to ascertain whether there was any perceptible current in the water.

[61] The name given to the cooking-stove.

[62] It was two years later to a day that the Fram put in at Skjervo, on the coast of Norway.

[63] During the summer we had made a kitchen of the chart-room on deck, because of the good daylight there; and, besides, the galley proper was to be cleaned and painted.

[64] Pettersen had been advanced from smith to cook, and he and Juell took turns of a fortnight each in the galley.