8 FRIDTJOF NANSEN. [norw. pol. exp. 



drawings and notes of what I saw; I hoped however that I should later get 

 an opportunity of studying them more closely. My time was taken up in 

 many ways, so that I could not give much time to them then, and before 

 the middle of August, 1894, the ponds and channels between the floes were 

 covered all over with ice, and 1 finally got no further opportunity of studying 

 them at all, as I left the Fram on a sledge journey before the next summer. 



Since my return from the expedition I have been occupied with other 

 investigations, and have not been able to give any time to the matter. 



Miss Kristine Bonnevie has, however, done me the great favour of 

 looking through my drawings and notes and of selecting those figures which 

 may be of most interest. They are here reproduced on Pis. 1 — VIII. I owe 

 her much gratitude for her very valuable assistance. We both agree, that 

 the material at hand is hardly sufficient for the determination of the species 

 even in the hands of an expert on the subject. 



As it appeared possible, however, that my observations, imperfect though 

 they are, might be of some interest to future students of this matter, I pub- 

 lish them in the form they were brought home. They may at least serve to 

 draw the attention of future travellers to this interesting life on the drifting 

 ice-floes of the North Polar Sea. 



It might seem puzzling, how these organisms have got into the ice in 

 the first place. The probability is that they, or rather germs of them, have 

 been frozen into the ice when it was formed at the surface of the sea. When 

 the ice again melted the germs developed in the ponds on the ice in the same 

 way as the diatoms, and were also carried by the melting water into the 

 channels between the floes. 



It seems probable therefore that these infusoria were of marine origin 

 like most diatoms found in the same ponds. The water of these ponds con- 

 tained, however, only between 1 and 2 %o salt. 



It seems hardly probable that the infusoria could have been carried by 

 the wind through the air. Some of them were found on comparatively white 

 and clean floes, which had been formed during the previous autumn and winter, 

 far from any sea-shore or open water. 



