INTRODUCTION xxxiii 



his two companions eastward to the unknown King 

 Edward VII. Land, which Scott discovered in 1902. 

 It looks rather as if this land was connected with the 

 masses of land and immense mountain-chains that 

 Amundsen found near the Pole. We see new problems 

 looming up. 



But it was not only these journeys over ice-sheets and 

 mountain -ranges that were carried out in masterly 

 fashion. Our gratitude is also due to Captain Nilsen 

 and his men. They brought the Fram backwards and 

 forwards, twice each way, through those ice-filled 

 southern waters that many experts even held to be 

 so dangerous that the Fram would not be able to come 

 through them, and on both trips this was done with the 

 speed and punctuality of a ship on her regular route. 

 The Fram's builder, the excellent Colin Archer, has 

 reason to be proud of the way in which his " child " has 

 performed her latest task this vessel that has been 

 farthest north and farthest south on our globe. But 

 Captain Nilsen and the crew of the Fram have done 

 more than this ; they have carried out a work of research 

 which in scientific value may be compared with what 

 their comrades have accomplished in the unknown world 

 of ice, although most people will not be able to recognize 

 this. While Amundsen and his companions were passing 

 the winter in the South, Captain Nilsen, in the Fram, 

 investigated the ocean between South America and 

 Africa. At no fewer than sixty stations they took a 



