Report on the expedition. 35 
Besides the provisions included in the above list we carried as for- 
merly mentioned some food to be used during storm days, so that on 
those days we could get a complete change of diet. The storm-pro- 
visions consisted of 
Bacon er en 4,5 kg. 
Dmed’apples 2... <=. 5,0 - 
SUAS ES eee atten 1.0. = 
Brown beans......... 5,5 kg. 
16,0 kg 
The necessary amount of biscuits and tea was saved out of the 
ordinary ration. This change of diet was particularly welcome and may 
be strongly recommended, but the brown beans, although very good 
when cooked, did not fulfil our expectations, as we could not afford to 
use fuel enough to get them properly cooked. 
Another important item of diminishing weight is the kerosene, of 
which we carried 34,13 kg. — 100 days’ consumption. The daily allow- 
ance pr. man was 0,17 kg. which was quite sufficient, though on the 
other hand it could not be further reduced, as long as the party consisted 
of two men. A party of three men however can easily get along on 
less. It may here be stated that we did not use the NANSEN cooker, 
which is so much used nowadays, as we wanted to heat our tent a 
little. In spite of this the kerosene was ample to allow us to cook 
pemmican and tea twice a day and to give us as much water to drink 
as we wanted. 
The sledge-journey was as mentioned calculated to last for a hundred 
days without our getting new supplies, and supposing that the dogs were 
fed with 0,5 kilo we would need 50 kg. food for each dog within this span 
of time. The eskimo-dogs on an average can not be reckoned on for 
hauling more than 50 kg., and in fact it amounts to this that on a hundred 
days’ journey the dogs can only haul their own provisions — continually 
assuming that the dogs shall be kept alive. 
The only way to make the dogs valuable on such a long sledge-journey 
is to kill them, as the load diminishes, and feed them to the survivors, 
so that the weight hauled by each dog is nearly constant on the whole 
journey, in other words, to kill a dog whenever 50 kg. is eaten. 
The following scale will show the way in which this was planned 
for the main-party. 
This table explains itself, and it is only necessary to call 
attention to the fact that two dogs were killed simultaneously at 
the end of 30 days of sledging in order to raise the average weight hauled 
by each dog to more than 40 kg. The average pr. dog increases rapidly 
from here and downward, but it must be born in mind: firstly, that 
the weakest dogs were of course killed first, secondly, that on this smaller 
3% 
