466 Chapter VIII. 



of degrees o f lono-itude that have been passed. Our 



o o A 



average course will be about N. 36 W. The direction 

 of our drift is consequently a much more northerly one 

 than the Jeannettes was, and this is just what we 

 expected ; ours cuts hers at an angle of 59. The line 

 of this year's drift continued will cut the north-east 

 island of Spitzbergen, and take us as far north as 84 7', 

 in 75 E. long., somewhere N.N.E. of Franz Josef Land. 

 The distance by this course to the North East Island is 

 827 miles. Should we continue to progress only at the 

 rate of 189 miles a year, it would take us 4*4 years to do 

 this distance. But assuming our progress to be at the 

 rate of 305 miles a year, we shall do it in 2*7 years. 

 That we should drift at least as quickly as this seems 

 probable, because we can hardly now be driven back as 

 we were in October last year, when we had the open 

 water to the south, and the great mass of ice to the north 

 of us. 



" The past summer seems to me to have proved that 

 while the ice is very unwilling to go back south, it is most 

 ready to go north-west as soon as there is ever so little 

 easterly, not to mention southerly wind. I therefore 

 believe, as I always have believed, that the drift will 

 become faster as we get farther north-west, and the 

 probability is that the Frain will reach Norway in two 

 years, the expedition having lasted its full three years, 

 as I somehow had a feeling that it would. As our 

 drift is 59 more northerly than the Jeannettes, and 



