270 FARTHEST NORTH 



flat, newly frozen ice, with older, uneven blocks breaking 

 through it. I seated myself on a snow hummock far 

 away out; the dogs crowded round to be patted. My 

 eye wandered over the great snow plain, endless and 

 solitary — nothing but snow, snow everywhere. 



" The observations to-day gave us an unpleasant sur- 

 prise ; we are now down in ^'$i^ 35' north latitude; but 

 there is a simple enough explanation of this when one 

 thinks of all the northerly and northwesterly wind we 

 have had lately, with open water not far to the south 

 of us. As soon as everything is frozen we must go north 

 again ; there can be no question of that ; but none the 

 less this state of matters is unpleasant. I find some 

 comfort in the fact that we have also drifted a little 

 east, so that at all events we have kept with the wind 

 and are not drifting down westward. 



" Monday, October 9th. I was feverish both during 

 last night and to-day. Goodness knows what is the 

 meanino^ of such nonsense. When I was takinsf water 

 samples in the morning I discovered that the water- 

 lifter suddenly stopped at the depth of a little less than 

 80 fathoms. It was really the bottom. So we have 

 drifted south again to the shallow water. We let the 

 weight lie at the bottom for a little, and saw by the line 

 that for the moment we were driftinor north. This was 

 some small comfort, anyhow. 



" All at once in the afternoon, as we were sitting idly 

 chattering, a deafening noise began, and the whole ship 



