The Spring and Summer of 1894. 427 



on the sea must be sufficient to cause a shifting of 



o 



the Pole to the extent of one minute in 800,000 years. 



In order to account for the European Glacial Age, which 



was my main object, I must shift the Pole at least ten or 



twenty degrees. This leaves an uncomfortably wide 



interval of time since that period, and shows that the 



human race must have attained a respectable age. Of 



course, it is all nonsense. But while I am indefatigably 



tramping the deck in a brown study, imagining myself no 



end of a great thinker, I suddenly discover that my thoughts 



are at home, where all is summer and loveliness, and those 



I have left are busy building castles in the air for the day 



when I shall return. Yes, yes. I spend rather too 



much time on this sort of thing ; but the drift goes as 



slowly as ever, and the wind, the all-powerful wind, is 



still the same. The first thing my eyes look for when I 



set foot on deck in the morning is the weathercock on the 



mizentop, to see how the wind lies ; thither they are for 



ever straying during the whole day, and there again they 



rest, the last thing before I turn in. But it ever points in 



the same direction, west and south-west, and we drift 



now quicker, now more slowly westwards, and only a 



little to the north. I have no doubt now about the 



success of the expedition, and my miscalculation was not 



so great after all ; but I scarcely think we shall drift 



higher than 85, even if we clo that. It will depend 



on how far Franz Josef Land extends to the north. In 



that case ii will be hard to give up reaching the Pole ; it 



