SUMMER JOURNEYS AND FERTILITY. 35 



over a third of the breadth of the sound from the east shore, due 

 west of the northern part of Stordalen. I do not think there could 

 have been more than eight or ten feet of water there at low tide, 

 and at high water twelve feet more. The Tram ' drew about eighteen 

 feet. It would have been a pleasant state of affairs had we run 

 aground there ! Not that the ' Fram ' would not have withstood that 



O 



shock, as it had done others, but it might well have been disagree- 

 able and annoying. 



As soon as the weather became somewhat passable Scliei and 



THE HEAD OF FRA51S HAVN. 



Simmons were continually on the move ; sometimes ashore inwards, 

 at others rowing in the skiff, near Skreia or in the western sound. 

 Schei had also taken on himself an entirely new avocation, and 

 had become a maker of blocks. A number of our shells had been 

 destroyed in the fire, and as we had not very many left it was 

 necessary to replace them by new ones. 



The farther the summer advanced the sharper was the outlook 

 we kept on the ice out in Jones Sound. Every evening, when our 

 day's work was done, some of us always went up the mountain- 

 sides. Sometimes we could see big lanes which seemed to stretch 

 right away to North Devon ; but the 'distance thither was so great 



