140 
THE XASSEX POLAR EXPEDITIOX 
by the prevailing north winds. They continued drifting with 
the ice in this manner for nearly eighteen months, when, having 
reached on March 3, 1895, 84° 4' north latitude, and finding they 
were drifting to the southward again, Xansen determined that 
the time had come in which to leave the ship and make the 
attempt to reach the highest possible north by other methods — 
a decision in which he was perfectly justified, as the Fram was 
even then at a more northerly point than had been attained by 
any previous expedition. 
Having given the command of the Fram over to Sverdrup, 
who had been his companion on his Greenland expedition, and 
accepted the offer of Lieutenant Johansen, who volunteered to 
accompany him — though warned by Dr Xansen that it was at 
the risk of his life to do so — the two men, on the 14th of March, 
1895, at 83° 59' north latitude and 102° 27' east longitude, left 
the ship. They took with them 28 dogs, 3 sleds, 2 kayaks or 
canvas-covered canoes, food for the dogs for thirty da}"s, and 
provisions for themselves for three months. From the 14th of 
March until the 7th of Ajiril they struggled onward, making 
their way on snowshoes or drifting on ice-ffoes, either northerly 
or southerly, with loose ice driving up around them into formi- 
dable heights over which it was wellnigh impossible to trans- 
j)ort the boats and sleds, and with the thermometer almost 
steadily at 40° below zero, Fahrenheit. 
On April 7 the odds against which they were laboring became 
decisive ; there was no prospect of scaling the ice-barriers around 
them. They were then at 86° 14' north latitude. Dr Xansen 
put on his snowshoes and took a last reconnoitering tour to the 
northward. As far as the eye could reach lay great bodies of 
ice driving before the wind, with no land or any indication of 
the same perceptible. It was apjjarent to Xansen that under 
these circumstances, and with the number of their dogs already 
decreasing, the}’^ had jmoceeded as far as it was j)racticable, and 
be therefore decided that they would start upon their return 
journey, taking a southerly course toward Franz Josef land, 
intending to proceed from there to Spitzbergen, where he knew 
they would be sure to find a ship which would carry them home. 
They set forth on the 8th day of April, 1895, and on the 12th 
their watches stopped, which of course threw them out of their 
longitudinal reckoning somewhat, but they bravely went on, 
overcoming the most discouraging obstacles, sometimes gaining 
long distances on their snowshoes, and again drifting with the 
