JUNE 22 TO AUGUST /j, i8<ps 647 



Furthermore, the most important part of our mission was in 

 a way accomplished. There was hardly any prospect that the 

 drift would carry us much farther northward than we were now, 

 and whatever could be done to explore the regions to the north 

 would be done by Nansen and Johansen. It was our object, 

 therefore, in compliance with the instructions from Dr. Nansen, 

 to make for open water and home by the shortest way and in 

 the safest manner, doing, however, everything within our power 

 to carry home with us the best possible scientific results. These 

 results, to judge from our experience up to this point, were 

 almost a foregone conclusion — to wit, that the Polar Sea retained 

 its character almost unchanged as we drifted westward, showing 

 the same depths, the same conditions of ice and currents, and 

 the same temperatures. No islands, rocks, shoals, and, still less, 

 no mainland, appeared in the neighborhood of our frequently 

 irregular course ; wherever we looked there was the same mo- 

 notonous and desolate plain of more or less rugged ice, hold- 

 ing us firmly, and carrying us willy-nilly along with it. Our 

 scientific observations were continued uninterruptedly, as regu- 

 larly and accurately as possible, and comprised, besides the usual 

 meteorological observations, soundings, measurement of the 

 thickness of the ice, longitude and latitude, taking the tem- 

 perature of the sea at various depths, determining its salinity, 

 collecting specimens of the fauna of the sea, magnetic and elec- 

 trical observations, and so forth. 



