SECOND AUTUMN IN THE ICE 539 



since we made fast for the first time to the Qrreat hum- 

 mock in the ice. Hansen improved the occasion by 

 making a cliart of our drift for the year. It does not 

 look so very bad, though the distance is not great ; the 

 direction is ahiiost exactly what I had expected. But 

 more of this to-morrow ; it is so late that I cannot write 

 about it now. The nights are turning darker and darker; 

 winter is settling down upon us. 



" Tuesday, September 25th. I have been looking 

 more carefully at the calculation of our last years drift. 

 If we reckon from the place where we were shut in 

 on the 2 2d of September last year to our position on 

 the 2 2d of September this year, the distance we have 

 drifted is 189 miles, equal to 3 9' latitude. Reckoning 

 from the same place, but to the farthest north point 

 we reached in summer (July i6th), makes the drift 

 225 miles, or 3^"" 46'. But if we reckon from our most 

 southern point in the autumn of last year (November 

 7th) to our most northern point this summer, then the 

 drift is 305 miles, or 5' 5'. We got fully 4° north, from 

 77' 43' to 81° 53'. To give the course of the drift is 

 a difficult task in these latitudes, as there is a per- 

 ceptible deviation of the compass with every degree of 

 longitude as one passes east or west; the change, of 

 course, given in degrees will be almost exactly the same 

 as the number of degrees of longitude that have been 

 passed. Our average course will be about N. 36'' W. 

 The direction of our drift is consequently a much more 



