366 MARVELS OF THE NORTH 



no easy matter to get it out again. After pondering over it for several days, 

 I have finally discovered that the influence of the moon on the sea must 

 be sufficient to cause a shifting of the Pole to the extent of one minute in 

 800,000 years. In order to account for the European Glacial Age, which 

 was my main object, I must shift the Pole at least ten or twenty degrees. 

 This leaves an uncomfortably wide interval of time since that period, and 

 shows that the human race must have attained a respectable age. Of course, 

 it is all nonsense. But while I am indefatigably tramping the deck in a 

 brown study, imagining myself no end of a great thinker, I suddenly dis- 

 cover that my thoughts are at home, where all is summer and loveliness, and 

 those I have left are busy building castles in the air for the day when I shall 

 return. Yes, yes. I spend rather too much time on this sort of thing; but 

 the drift goes as slowly as ever, and the wind, the all-powerful wind, is still 

 the same. The first thing my eyes look for when I set foot on deck in the 

 morning is the weather-cock on the mizzen-top, to see how the wind lies; 

 thither they are forever straying during the whole day, and there again they 

 rest the last thing before I turn in. But it ever points in the same direction; 

 west and southwest, and we drift now quicker, now more slowly westward, 

 and only a little to the north. I have no doubt now about the success of the 

 expedition, and my miscalculation was not so great, after all; but I scarcely 

 think we shall drift higher than 85 degrees, even if we do that. It will 

 depend on how far Franz Josef Land extends to the north. In that case it 

 will be hard to give up reaching the Pole; it is in reality a mere matter of 

 vanity, merely child's play, in comparison with what we are doing and hoping 

 to do ; and yet I must confess that I am foolish enough to want to take in 

 the Pole while I am about it, and shall probably have a try at it if we get 

 into its neighborhood within any reasonable time. 



FOGS AND HOAR-FROST. 



"This is a mild May; the temperature has been about zero several times 

 of late, and one can walk up and down and almost imagine one's self at home. 

 There is seldom more than a few degrees of cold; but the summer fogs are 

 beginning, with occasional hoar-frost. As a rule, however, the sky, with its 

 light, fleeting clouds, is almost like a spring sky in the south. 



"We notice, too, that it has become milder on board; we no longer need 

 to light a fire in the stove to make ourselves warm and cozy; though, indeed, 

 we have never indulged in much luxury in this respect. In the store-room 



