PREPARATIONS AND EQUIPMENT 59 



however, could not be equipped in so short a time, and 

 if the voyage itself took three years, the preparations 

 took no less time, while the scheme was conceived thrice 

 three years earlier. 



Plan after plan did Archer make of the projected 

 ship; one model after another was prepared and aban- 

 doned. 



Fresh improvements were constantly being suggested. 

 The form we finally adhered to may seem to many peo- 

 ple by no means beautiful ; but that it is well adapted to 

 the ends in view I think our expedition has fully proved. 

 What was especially aimed at was, as mentioned on page 

 29, to give the ship such sides that it could readily be 

 hoisted up during ice - pressure without being crushed 

 between the iioes. Greely, Nares, etc., etc., are certainly 

 right in saying that this is nothing new, I relied here 

 simply on the sad experiences of earlier expeditions. 

 What, however, may be said to be new is the fact that we 

 not only realized that the ship ought to have such a form, 

 but that we gave it that form, as well as the necessary 

 strength for resisting great ice -pressure, and that this 

 was the guiding idea in the whole work of construction. 

 Colin Archer is quite right in what he says in an article 

 in the Norsk Tidsskrifl for Sovcrsai, 1892: "When one 

 bears in mind what is, so to speak, the fundamental idea 

 of Dr. Nansen's plan in his North Pole Expedition . . . 

 it will readily be seen that a ship which is to be built 

 with exclusive regard to its suitability for this object 



