i68 FARTHEST NORTH 



the ridge, 30 feet in height, where we are encamped. We 

 hardly made 4 miles yesterday. Lanes, ridges, and end- 

 less rough ice, it looks like an endless moraine of ice- 

 blocks ; and this continual lifting of the sledges over 

 every irregularity is enough to tire out giants. Curious 

 this rubble-ice. For the most part it is not so very mas- 

 sive, and seems as if it had been forced up somewhat 

 recently, for it is incompletely covered with thin, loose 

 snow, through which one falls suddenly up to one's mid- 

 dle. And thus it extends mile after mile northward, 

 while every now and then there are old floes, with 

 mounds that have been rounded off by the action of the 

 sun in the summer — often very massive ice. 



" I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that we are 

 not doing any good here. We shall not be able to get 

 much farther north, and it will be slow work indeed if 

 there be much more of this sort of ice towards Franz 

 Josef Land. On the other hand, we should be able to 

 make much better use of our time there, if we should 

 have any over. 8.30 p.m., -29.2" Fahr. (-34 C). 



" Monday, April Sth. No ; the ice grew worse and 

 worse, and we got no way. Ridge after ridge, and 

 nothing but rubble to travel over. We made a start 

 at 2 o'clock or so this morning, and kept at it as long 

 as we could, lifting the sledges all the time ; but it grew 

 too bad at last. I went on a good way ahead on snow- 

 shoes, but saw no reasonable prospect of advance, and 

 from the highest hummocks only the same kind of ice 



