SECOND AUTUMN IN THE ICE 541 



that our course will become more northerly the farther 

 on we go, until we are past Franz Josef Land, and that 

 we shall consequently reach a higher latitude than our 

 drift so far would indicate. I hope 85' at least. Every- 

 thing has come right so far; the direction of our drift is 

 exactly parallel with the course which I conjectured to 

 have been taken by the floe with the Jcannctte relics, and 

 which I pricked out on the chart prepared for my London 

 Address.*" This course touched about '$>']'^ north lati- 

 tude. I have no right to expect a more northerly drift 

 than parallel to this, and have no right to be anything 

 but happy if I get as far. Our aim, as I have so often 

 tried to make clear, is not so much to reach the point in 

 which the earth's axis terminates, as to traverse and ex- 

 plore the unknown Polar Sea; and yet I should like to 

 get to the Pole, too, and hope that it wull be possible to 

 do so, if only we can reach 84° or 85° by March. And 

 why should we not? 



"Thursday, September 27th. Have determined that, 

 beginning from to-morrow, every man is to go out snow- 

 shoeing two hours daily, from 11 to i, so long as the 

 daylight lasts. It is necessary. If anything happened 

 that obliged us to make our way home over the ice, I am 

 afraid some of the company would be a terrible hinderance 

 to us, unpractised as they are now. Several of them are 



* See Geographical Journal, London, 1S93. See also the map in 

 Natiircn, 1890, and the Norwegian Geographical Society's Year Book, I., 

 i8go. 



