The Winter Night. 345 



height was 18 or 19 feet above the surface of the water ; 

 floe-ice 8 feet thick was broken, pressed up in square 

 blocks, and crushed to pieces. At one point a huge 

 monolith of such floe-ice rose high into the air. Beyond 

 this pressure-wall there was no great disturbance to be 

 detected. There had been a little packing here and there, 

 and the floe to port had four or five large cracks across 

 it, which no doubt accounted for the explosions I heard 

 last night. The ice to starboard was also cracked in 

 several places. The pressure had evidently come from 

 the north or N.N.E. The ridge behind us is one of the 

 highest I have seen yet. I believe that if the Fram had 

 been lying there she would have been lifted right out of 

 the water. I walked for some distance in a north- 

 easterly direction, but saw no signs of pressure there. 



"Another Sunday. It is wonderful that the time can 

 pass so quickly as it does. For one thing, we are in 

 better spirits, knowing that we are drifting steadily north. 

 A rough estimate of to-day's observation gives 79 50' 

 N. lat. That is not much since Monday ; but then 

 yesterday and to-day there has been almost no wind at 

 all, and the other days it has been very light, only once 

 or twice with as much as 9 feet velocity, the rest of 

 the time 3 and 6. 



" A remarkable event happened yesterday afternoon : 

 I got Munthe's picture of the ' Three Princesses ' 

 fastened firmly on the wall. It is a thing that we have 

 been going to do ever since we left Christiania, but we 



