508 FARTHEST NORTH 



well now. After having blown a ' windmill breeze ' to- 

 day it falls calm in the evening, and to-morrow we shall 

 probably have wind from the west or northwest. 



" Yesterday evening the last cigar out of the old box ! 

 And now I have smoked the first out of the last box I 

 have got. We were to have got so far by the time that' 

 box was finished ; but are scarcely any farther advanced 

 than when I began it, and goodness knows if we shall 

 be that when this, too, has disappeared. But enough of 

 that. Smoke away. 



"Sunday, July 22d. The northwest wind did not 

 come quite up to time ; on Friday we had northeast in- 

 stead, and during the night it gradually went round to 

 N.N.E., and yesterday forenoon it blew due north. To- 

 day it has ended in the west, the old well-known quarter, 

 of which we have had more than enough. This evening 

 the line''" shows about N.W. to N., and it is strong, so we 

 are moving south again. 



" I pass the day at the microscope. I am now busied 

 with the diatoms and alga? of all kinds that grow on the 

 ice in the uppermost fresh stratum of the sea. These are 

 undeniably most interesting things, a whole new world 

 of organisms that are carried off by the ice from known 

 shores across the unknown Polar Sea, there to awaken 

 every summer and develop into life and bloom. Yes, it 



* We always had a line, with a net at the end, hanging out, in order 

 to see the direction we were drifting, or to ascertain whether there was 

 any perceptible current in the water. 



