6i4 APPENDIX 



the strong back-drift during the summer, make a little headway 

 instead, and if so it will be all the better for us. The ice is not 

 so much cut up by channels this year as it was this time last 

 year. It is true there are a good many; but last year we could 

 scarcely get about at all, simply on account of the lanes. This 

 year we have large sheets of ice ahead of us in which scarcely 

 any openings are to be found." 



In order to observe the drift of the ice we prepared a kind of 

 log-line, from lOO to 150 fathoms in length, to the end of which 

 there was attached a conical open bag of loosely woven material, 

 in which small animals could be caught up. Immeciiately above 

 the bag a lead was fitted to the line, so that the bag itself might 

 drag freely in the water. The log was lowered through a fairly 

 wide hole in the ice, which it was a most difficult task to keep 

 open during the cold season. Several times a day the line was 

 examined and the "angle of drift" was measured. For this 

 measurement we had constructed a quadrant fitted with a 

 plumb-line. Now and then we would haul in the log-line to 

 see whether it was still in order and to collect whatever the bag 

 might contain in the way of little animals or other objects. As 

 a rule the contents were insignificant, consisting only of a few 

 specimens of low organisms. 



At the end of May the 'spring drift" was over. The wind 

 veered round to the S.W., W., and N.W. The back -drift or 

 "summer drift" then set in. However, it was not of long dura- 

 tion, as by June 8th we again had an easterly wind with a good 

 drift to the west, so that on the 22d we were at 84° 31.7' north 

 latitude and 80° 58' east longitude ; and during the last days of 

 June and the greater part of July the drift went still better. 



A circumstance which helped to increase the monotony of 

 our drift in the ice during the winter and spring, 1895, was the 

 great scarcity of animal life in that part of the Polar Sea. For 

 long periods at a stretch we did not see a single living thing ; 

 even the polar bears, who roam so far, were not to be seen. 

 Hence the appearance in the afternoon of May 7th of a small seal 

 in a newly opened lane, close by the vessel, was hailed with uni- 

 versal delight. It was the first seal that we had set eyes upon 



