SRE PORT 
2 FRIDTJOF NANSEN. M.-N. KI. 
and he also had a meter-wheel of my construction (the larger size of those 
now delivered through the International Central Laboratory of Christiania). 
He also constructed a simple water-bottle for taking water-samples and 
temperatures down to moderate depths, while the vessel was sailing. 
He reccived instruction in taking all kinds of oceanographical observations, 
and both he and his assistant, Sergeant Ristvedt (also a member of his 
present expedition through the North West Passage), had some practice 
in taking of water-temperatures and water-samples etc. in the laboratory 
and on the ice in Christiania Fjord. 
Thus better equipped for physical oceanographic research than any 
arctic expedition before, Captain Amundsen started from Tromse on 
April 22, 1901. He returned to Tromsø again on September 4, 1901. 
with a splendid collection of observations, 2128 water-samples, 627 plankton- 
samples, etc. He had also thrown out 382 bottles (with post cards) for 
determining the drift. The post-cards were addressed to me, and I have 
received a good many which will be mentioned later. 
The ice-conditions had been unfavourable, so that Amundsen had 
not been able to penetrate the ice and reach the East Coast of Greenland. 
He had therefore not succeeded in taking a complete transverse section of 
the East Greenland Polar Current and underlying waters; but still, the 
series of observations which he succeeded in taking from this region are, 
as we shall see below, of fundamental importance in understanding the 
origin of the »bottom-water« of the Norwegian Sea, which forms more 
than two thirds of the quantity of water filling this basin. 
Amundsen was, however, so keen on completing the task he had 
set himself, vis. of taking a complete section of the Greenland Polar Cur- 
rent, that in his first telegram from Tromsø, he asked me whether he might 
keep the instruments and oceanographical equipment, on board the vessel, 
as he wished to go out again the following year to make the complete section 
of the Polar Current. It was only on my advice that he gave up this 
plan. I thought it was still more important for him not to delay by one 
year the preparation for his expedition to the Magnetic North Pole. 
The plankton-samples brought back by Amundsen have been exa- 
mined by Professor H. H. Gran, and will be described by him in a 
special paper. 
