394 
IN ATO RE 
[FrBRuary 25, 1897 
of human suffering, and the tragedies of the retreat 
towards relief expeditions which have missed their mark, 
darken the records of Arctic travel. But here there is 
no tragedy. The necessary killing of the sledge-dogs to 
support the life of the rest is the harshest feature, and 
that seems to have seriously disturbed the equanimity of 
the kind-hearted explorers. To any but hardened sports- 
men the pathetic display of maternal and filial affection 
between polar bears or walruses and their young, brings 
the cruelty of hunting man into painful relief ; but happy, 
indeed, is that Arctic expedition in which sympathy for 
suffering is enlisted on behalf of the lower animals 
alone. 
The pictorial power of Nansen’s descriptions of the 
Arctic night, or the mysterious solitudes of the ice-fields, 
need not be dwelt on here, nor shall we linger on the 
psychological aspect of the expedition, the alternations 
of hope and doubt, the reminiscences of home as familiar 
anniversaries came round again and again, but proceed 
rather to point out some of the practical deductions to be 
made from the voyage. The preliminary scientific results 
having been already referred to in NATURE (vol. lv. 
p- 352), need not be repeated; but it is interesting to 
compare the actual experiences, detailed in the book, 
[Copyright by Archibald Constable and Coe., 18097. 
Fic. 1.—Cleaning the Accumulators before stowing away. 
with the original project as described in the Geographical 
Journal (vol. 1., 1893, p. 1) and summarised in NATURE 
(vol. xlvii. p. 65). 
The ship answered the purpose for which she was | 
designed exactly. The rudder was unshipped through 
the rudder-well, and kept on board during the greater 
part of the drift ; but it was not found necessary to un- 
ship the propeller, which sustained no damage from the 
ice. Despite the great strength of the ship, and the 
wonderful freedom from strain, even during the severest 
ice-pressure, a good deal of water found its way on 
board during the summer months, but the leakage was 
found quite insignificant when the ship was floated after 
her three years on the ice. The lifting of the vessel 
by ice-pressure took place exactly as predicted, and she 
lay on the ice on a nearly even keel almost all the time, 
recovering her position spontaneously after being heeled 
over by heavy pressures. The non-conducting walls of 
the saloon entirely obviated the bugbear of all former 
expeditions—the condensation of moisture on the roof 
and sides, which, running down, saturates the cushions 
and bedding. With the fire lighted, the saloon was 
perfectly dry, and so warm that the fire was usually 
dispensed with. The arrangement for the supply of 
light was not quite so satisfactory. The engine was 
taken to pieces when the /7avz was fairly beset, and the 
NO. 1426, VOL. 55] 
dynamos were worked for the first two years by a wind- 
mill, which gave good results. Early in the third winter 
the windmill wore out, and Sverdrup took it down ; the 
accumulators were cleaned (see Fig. 1) and packed away. 
The men on board had so much necessary work to do with 
observations, shifting the boats and emergency stores, 
which were always kept on the ice, and had to be closely 
watched on account of the appearance of cracks, that 
there was no time to work the dynamo by means of a 
capstan and multiplying gear, as originally planned, and 
so for the longest and darkest winter of all there was no 
electric light. 
The health throughout seems to have been perfect. 
The weight of all the members of the expedition in- 
creased. We read of Nansen suffering from lumbago 
for a day or two, of Sverdrup being laid up once with 
intestinal catarrh attributed to a chill, of a few slight 
frost-bites, a little snow-blindness, but nothing worse. 
There was no threatening of scurvy, and the doctor had 
no professional work to do beyond weighing himself and 
his companions, and counting the red blood-corpuscles 
once a month. ~All the food taken proved perfectly 
satisfactory, except some pemmican prepared with cocoa- 
nut fat, which even the dogs declined after once trying 
it. In every particular the equipment and 
provisions of the expedition were in excess of 
the actual requirements, and nothing not taken, 
except a long sounding-line, seems to have 
been wanted. Dr. Nansen attributes the good 
spirits and harmony of the expedition largely 
to the fact that all thirteen members lived 
together, eating the same food at the same 
table, and sharing the same work; he was 
much gratified with the complete success of 
this novel social experiment. 
The Fram left Vardé on July 21, 1893, 
embarked a number of Siberian sledge-dogs 
at Khabarova, and entering the Kara Sea on 
August 4, coasted along the north of Asia, 
discovering many new island groups, and 
encountering no serious difficulty until Sep- 
tember 25, when in latitude 79°, north of the 
Lena Delta, she was frozen into the ice-floe 
and commenced her drift. The first two 
months were spent drifting in various direc- 
tions, but mainly south-east. Then a change 
occurred, and a north-westerly drift set in 
very slowly and irregularly, with many diver- 
sions to southward, while the ice under the /7vam 
steadily increased in thickness. ; 
On February 2, 1894, the crossing of 80° N. was cele- 
brated ; on May 15 81°, on October 31 82°, and. on 
December 25 837 were successively attained. On January 
6, 1895, the Aya was further north (83° 34’) than any 
previous expedition had reached, and it was a year and 
a half before she returned again to recorded latitudes. 
March 3 brought her to 84°, due north of Cape Chel- 
yuskin, and on September 22 she crossed 85°, going north- 
west. For four months she remained north of 85°, and . 
the sun remained invisible below the horizon for five and 
a half months—from October 8, 1895, to March 24, 1896. 
This was the longest and darkest winter ever experienced 
by man ; but Sverdrup, in his record of it, makes light 
of its tedium, and notices no decline in the general health 
of himself and his ten comrades. On November 15, 
1895, the northward component of the westerly drift 
ceased to act in latitude 85° 55’, longitude 66° 31’ E., and 
from that date there was a southerly component, 1n- 
creasing until the drift was due south in April. On May 
19, 1896, steam was got up for the first time, and the 
fight to escape from the ice-floe commenced. Sverdrup 
blasted the vessel free, and worked her slowly through 
the lanes, as they appeared in the breaking pack, for 
180 miles, at length reaching the open sea and sighting 
