THE LAST SUMMER. 425 



treacherous ice where, so to speak, new pitfalls opened every hour. 

 The lane astern the ship ate its way farther and farther outwards, 

 and we now had river water close by the ' Fram.' 



After finishing his magnetic observations, about July 10, 

 Baumann set to work to make tarpaulin covers for the hatches, 

 mast- hoops, and various other things which had to be done, before 

 the ship was ready for sea ; nearly all our mast-hoops had been 

 spoiled. Fosheim nailed them on, and had a good deal of other 

 carpentering work on his hands as well. Among other things, he 

 made a number of oars ; and also some fiddles for the cabin tables, 

 curiously enough, without for a moment feeling seasick. Schei 

 brought on board the fossils he had collected farther up the fjord 

 that summer ; he had now finished his geological examination of 

 this part of the country. 



He and I then began to pack our library, which was of con- 

 siderable size ; in fact, our work just now chiefly consisted of 

 stowing away everything loose which might be expected to roll 

 about when we were under way. 



From July 12 the ship was only kept back by a strip of ice, 

 and a fresh, steady south wind would free us at any minute. So 

 we sounded along the east shore, to see where we could anchor, 

 and found that it was everywhere deep; quite near to land, as 

 much as thirty or forty fathoms. 



On Tuesday, July 15, we got loose, anchored in thirty fathoms 

 of water, and put out thirty fathoms of chain. The whole mass 

 of the ice on the inner side of the sand street was in drift, and 

 we might well have gone out through Trangsundet, but as yet 

 we could do nothing in the outer part of the fjord, which was 

 still covered with ice. 



On the 16th, the boiler was filled from a brook, where the water 

 was clear, and free from grit and deposits. The boats, which had 

 been on the water for some time, to tighten, after their long stay 

 on land, were now taken on board. In a word, the ' Fram ' was 

 rapidly becoming a ship again ; she had long enough been some- 

 thing half-way between a warehouse and a dwelling-house. 



The whole mass of the ice was now broken up into floes of 

 greater or less size. Often the current pressed these together 



