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NATURAL SCIENCE: 



A Monthly Review of Scientific Progress. 



No. 55. Vol. IX. SEPTEMBER. 1896. 



NOTES AND COMMENTS. 



" Skal to the Norseman! Skal ! " 



PEOPLE of all nationalities, and especially the friends of science, 

 will greet with a hearty welcome the safe return of Fridtjof 

 Nansen, and the notable results of the voyage of the " Fram." It was 

 on midsummer day, 1893, half-an-hour after noon, that Nansen, with 

 twelve men, left Christiania " on a polar expedition, with the fixed 

 resolve to do their uttermost.'' It will be remembered that Nansen's 

 plan differed from that of his predecessors in that he took for his allies 

 the forces of nature themselves. The discovery on the east coast of 

 Greenland of flotsam, supposed to be derived from the American ship 

 " Jeannette," which had sunk near the island of New Siberia, about 

 longitude 155° E., and latitude 77° N., suggested that they had been 

 carried across the polar circle by some unknown current. On this idea 

 Nansen's plan was based ; the " Fram " was specially built so as to 

 be lifted up by the ice when nipped instead of being crushed by it,, 

 and she entered the ice-sea north of the New Siberian islands with the 

 intention of being carried, if not across the north pole itself, at all 

 events nearer to it than man had hitherto penetrated. The scheme 

 was scouted by many old Arctic voyagers, and there were not a few 

 who thought they had seen the last of " the foolhardy Norseman " on 

 that midsummer day three years ago. But the enterprise is justified 

 by the event, and Nansen returns to us, not merely as the most 

 successful of those that had ventured towards the pole, but crowned 

 with the more fruitful honours of important scientific discovery. 



The " Fram " left New Siberia, and, entering the ice, was uplifted 

 by it and carried to 84° N. This was already higher than the most 

 northerly latitude previously attained, namely 83° 24', which was 

 reached by Lieutenant Lockwood of the Greely expedition in 1862. 

 Here, however, it appeared that the vessel would not be carried further 

 north, as it was then imprisoned by ice drifting in a westerly direction. 

 Therefore, on March 14, 1895, Nansen and Johansen, who volunteered 

 to accompany him, left the ship, and journeyed northwards with dogs, 



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