BEFORE THE POLAR NIGHT. 109 



the big universal instrument which had not been used since we 

 were in Godhavn required a rub-up to prevent it from rusting. 



Then there were the sledges. In addition to a great deal of 

 smith's work of another sort such as putting in a new stove-pipe 

 instead of the old one, which had become dangerous Nodtvedt 

 had an order for plates for a good many of the sledge-runners. 

 Fosheim had orders for all sorts of carpenter's work, but was 

 chiefly occupied with the sledges, which all required seeing to, 

 and many of them mending. We had discovered that the upward 

 bend of the runners was too thin, and they were accordingly 

 taken off every one of the sledges, the thickness of the wood 

 added to, and the runners re-shod with the German silver. The 

 wooden bows connecting the two runners, as made in Christiania, 

 had proved to be too slender. They were now taken out of 

 each sledge and a new bow put in, of double or threefold slats 

 of wood, one curved on the top of the other, the whole thing 

 being afterwards maiiined. Fosheim also had the contract for 

 new runners and cross-pieces for the sledges ; also for new tent- 

 poles, the old ones having proved to be far too slight for our use. 



Nobody envied Fosheim his work, which was the coldest of 

 all. His workshop was in the 'tween decks, and bad as the cold 

 had been out there the previous winter it was still worse this. 

 A temperature of 17 Fahr. (27 Cent.) was not uncommon. 

 Try it, who will ! I cannot imagine anybody finding it pleasant 

 to stand day after day at a carpenter's bench in between forty and 

 fifty degrees of frost. Fosheim became well used to it in course 

 of time, though he had never been tender. As far as I heard, 

 not a word of complaint on the score of it ever passed his lips. 



There was also a vast amount of sewing to be done that 

 winter. First and foremost came the great sleeping-bag question. 

 The bags we had brought with us from home, and which we had 

 used on all our journeys hitherto, were worn out, so that an 

 entirely new set had to be made. A certain amount of weight is 

 of course saved by using two-man bags, and it cannot be denied 

 that they are also considerably warmer, but all the same they 

 were not very popular, and most of the expedition were decided 

 in their preference for single bags. As the slight saving of weight 



