THE WINTER NIGHT 243 



of any consequence: just a few buckets of ice that had 

 to be hewn away every month from the bottom of the 

 ship and hoisted up. 



To these varied employments was presently added, 

 as the most important of all, the taking of scientific 

 observations, which gave many of us constant occupa- 

 tion. Those that involved the greatest labor were, of 

 course, the meteorological obserx^ations, which were 

 taken every four hours day and night; indeed, for a 

 considerable part of the time, every two hours. They 

 kept one man, sometimes two, at work all day. It was 

 Hansen who had the principal charge of this department, 

 and his regular assistant until March, 1895, was Johan- 

 sen, whose place was then taken by Nordahl. The 

 night observations were taken by whoever was on watch. 

 About every second day, when the weather was clear, 

 Hansen and his assistant took the astronomical observa- 

 tion which ascertained our position. This was certainly 

 the work which was followed with most interest by all 

 the members of the expedition ; and it was not uncom- 

 mon to see Hansen's cabin, while he was making his 

 calculations, besieged with idle spectators, waiting to 

 hear the result — whether we had drifted north or south 

 since the last observation, and how far. The state of 

 feeling on board very much depended on these results. 



Hansen had also at stated periods to take observa- 

 tions to determine the magnetic constant in this un- 

 known region. These were carried on at first in a 



