(280 EEPORT OF COMMISSIONER OF FISH AND FISHERIES. 



very small young deer, whose exceediugiy fine and sweet meat was a 

 welcome addition to our mess. 



After liaving- remained three days and three nights in Advent Bay 

 everything was ready for the home passage. The boiler had been care- 

 fully examined, a new supply of water had been taken on board, and 

 the bay had been mapped. At six o'clock in the afternoon, on the 22d 

 of August, we weighed anchor, and after having made a haul with 

 the trawl at the outlet of the bay, which, however, gave us but a small 

 return, we directed our course out of the Ice-fjord to the sea. ^Ye 

 liad only enough coal left to last eight days, so that a longer stay at 

 Spitzbergen, for this reason if for no other, could not be looked upon as 

 advisable. But as Bell Sound, a place famous for the beauty of its scen- 

 ery, lay directly in our way, we agreed among ourselves that, in case 

 ■we obtained favorable weather, we would, as a sort of leave-taking cere- 

 mony, make a short trip in there, in order to be able to bring home with us 

 a perfectly fresh impression of the imposing scenery of Spitzbergen. The 

 evening was still and the sky cleared, so that we retired filled with the 

 fairest hopes of being able on the following morning to enjoy the sight 

 of Bell Sound's celebrated mountain peaks and glaciers. But we were 

 deceived in our expectations. Dense fog on the following morning en- 

 veloped the land and hid all the mountain peaks from sight. Under 

 such circumstances we would scarcely gain anything by running into 

 Bell Sound, and as it was out of the question to spend any time waiting 

 for clear weather the trip was abandoned. So the stem of the ship was 

 turned to the south again, and every trace of Spitzbergen soon vanished 

 in the fog. About half way between Spitzbergen and Beeren Island we 

 finally took a series of careful observations of the temperature, in order 

 to get one more factor in the complicated problem of establishing the 

 conditions of temperature in this belt of the ocean. And herewith our 

 investigations were at length completed. Instruments and apparatus 

 were packed away, and what we now had to do was to get southward to 

 Norway as rapidly as possible. 



The weather, which up to this time had been unusually still, showed 

 on the next day all signs of changing for the worse. The barometer fell 

 rapidly^ in the horizon appeared threatening cloud-banks, and the wdnd 

 began to blow from the east. Toward evening the breeze had increased 

 into a gale, but it fortunately blew from the northeast, and hence it was 

 favorable to us. The studding-sails were set, and, as if the Voring her- 

 self now was longing to get home, she sped on with unusual velocity, so 

 that we were making much more rapid progress than we from the be- 

 ginning had calculated. As we got farther south the waves became 

 higher, and the ship, which now was uncommonly light, now and then 

 tossed about so violently in the night that we were several times in a 

 rather disagreeable manner awakened from our sleep. But we had 

 already tested the Yoring once before, under similar circumstances, and 



