TEJNIPERATURE OF THE WATER 309 



200 nautical miles, or an average of about 8^ knots an 

 hour, which was the best day's work the Fram had done 

 up to that time. The wind, which had been westerly 

 and north-westerly, went by degrees to the north, and 

 ended in a hurricane from the north-east on Sunday, 

 JNIarch 12. I shall quote here what I wrote about this 

 in my diary on the 13th: 



" Well, now we have experienced the first hurricane 

 on the Fram. On Saturday afternoon, the 11th, the wind 

 went to the north-east, as an ordinary breeze with rain. 

 The barometer had been steady between 29*29 inches 

 (744 millimetres) and 29'33 inches (745 millimetres). 

 During the afternoon it began to fall, and at 8 p.m. 

 it was 29*25 inches (743 millimetres) without the 

 wind having freshened at all. The outer jib was taken 

 in, however. By midnight the barometer had fallen 

 to 29*0 inches (737 millimetres), while the wind had 

 increased to a stiff breeze. We took in the foresail, 

 mainsail, and inner jib, and had now only the top- 

 sail and a storm-trysail left. The wind gradually in- 

 creased to a gale. At 4 a.m. on Sunday the barometer 

 had fallen again to 28*66 inches (728 millimetres), and 

 at 6 a.m. the topsail was made fast.* 



* For the benefit of those who know what a buntline on a sail is, 

 I may remark that besides the usual topsail buntlines we had six extra 

 buntlines round the whole sail, so that when it was clewed up it was, 

 so to speak, made fast. We got the sail clewed up without its going 

 to pieces, but it took us over an hour. We had to take this precaution, 

 of having so many buntlines, as we were short-handed. 



