Voyage through the Kara Sea. i 73 



ahead, which blocked further progress. It stretched 

 from Taimur Island rio-ht across to the islands south of 



O 



it. On the ice, bearded seals (p/ioca barbata] were to 

 be seen in all directions, and we saw one walrus. We 

 approached the ice to make fast to it, but the Fraui had 

 got into a dead-water, and made hardly any way, in 

 spite of the engine going full pressure. It was such 

 slow work that I thought I would row ahead to shoot 

 seal. In the meantime the Fram advanced slowly to 

 the edge of the ice with her machinery still going at 

 full-speed. 



For the moment we had simply to give up all thoughts 

 of getting on. It was most likely, indeed, that only a few 

 miles of solid ice lay between us and the probably open 

 Taimur Sea ; but to break through this ice was an 

 impossibility. It was too thick, and there were no 

 openings in it. Nordenskiold had steamed through here 

 earlier in the year (August iSth, 1878) without the 

 slightest hindrance,* and here, perhaps, our hopes, for 

 this year at any rate, were to be wrecked. It was not 



possible that the ice should melt before winter set in in 

 earnest. The only thing to save us would be a proper 



* In his account of his voyage Nordenskiold writes as follows of the 

 condition of this channel : " We were met by only small quantities 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." 



