The Spring- and Summer of 1894. 441 



And now I have smoked the first out of the last box 

 I have got. We were to have got so far by the time 

 that box was finished ; but are scarcely any further 

 advanced than when I began it, and goodness knows 

 if we shall be that when this, too, has disappeared. 

 But enough of that. Smoke away." 



" Sunday, July 2 2nd. The north-west wind did not 

 come quite up to time ; on Friday we had north-east 

 instead, and during the night it gradually w r ent round 

 to N.N.E., and yesterday forenoon it blew due north. 

 To-day it has ended in the west, the old well known 

 quarter, of which we have had more than enough. This 

 evening the line"" shows about N.W. to N., and it is 

 strong, so we are moving south again. 



" I pass the day at the microscope. I am now busied 

 with the diatoms and algae of all kinds that grow on the 

 ice in the uppermost fresh stratum of the sea. These are 

 undeniably most interesting things, a whole new world of 

 organisms that are carried off by the ice from known 

 shores across the unknown Polar Sea, there to awaken 

 every summer, and develop into life and bloom. Yes, it 

 is very interesting work, but yet there is not that same 

 burning interest as of old, although the scent of oil of 

 cloves, Canada balsam, and wood-oil, awakens many 



* We always had a line, with a net at the end, hanging out, in order 

 to see the direction we were drifting in, or to ascertain whether there 

 was any perceptible current in the water. 



