78 Chapter II. 



No sooner did the plan of my expedition become 

 known, than petitions poured in by the hundred from all 

 quarters of the earth, from Europe, America, Australia, 

 from persons who wished to take part in it, in spite of 

 the many warning voices that had been raised. It was 

 no easy thing to choose among 1 all the brave men who 

 applied. As a matter of course it was absolutely 

 essential that every man should be strong and healthy, 

 and not one was finally accepted till he had been carefully 

 examined by Professor Hialmar Heiberg, of Christiania. 



The following is a list of the members of the expedi- 

 tion : 



Otto Neumann Sverdrup, Commander of the Frain, 

 was born in Bindal in Helgeland, 1855. At the age of 

 seventeen he went to sea, passed his mate's examination 

 in 1878, and for some years was captain of a ship. In 

 1888-89 he took part in the Greenland Expedition. As 

 soon as he heard of the plan of the Polar Expedition he 

 expressed his desire to accompany it, and I knew that I 

 could not place the Fram in better hands. He is 

 married and has one child. 



Sigurd Scott-Hanscn, First Lieutenant in the Navy, 

 undertook the management of the meteorological, 

 astronomical, and magnetic observations. He was 

 born in Christiania in 1868. After passing through 

 the Naval School at Horten, he became an officer in 

 1889, and First Lieutenant in 1892. He is a son of 

 Andreas Hansen, parish priest in Christiania. 



