THE NANSEN POLAR EXPEDITION 
343 
hanging in wild disorder upon their shoulders, and their cloth- 
ing stiff and dark with the accumulated grease and blood of the 
animals they had slaughtered and cooked during fifteen months 
of unexampled existence. 
On August 13, 1896, the Jackson expedition’s shi]3, the Wind- 
loard, landed them at Vardo, Norway, and on the 20th of the 
same month the Fram came steaming into Skjervo, near Ham- 
merfest, and thus the whole expedition was once more on its 
native shores, every man alive and hearty, and the Fram itself 
without a timber injured. 
After Nansen left the Fram in Captain Sverdrup’s charge it 
continued its, on the whole, northwesterly drift, sometimes veer- 
ing a little to the southward, and then gaining something in the 
wished-for direction northward, and again lying cradled in ice, 
from which it was several times freed by charges of powder, some- 
times as large a charge as 110 pounds being exploded in the ice. 
On the 16th of October, 1895, seven months after Nansen left 
them, the Fravi reached her highest latitude, viz., 85° 57' north 
latitude, in longitude 66° east. After this the drift was to the 
southward again, and when the ice broke up this summer of 
1896 the most energetic efforts were made to free the Fram and 
get her through the vast fields of ice out to ojDen water. This 
was finally successful, and on the 13th of August, the very day 
of Nansen’s arrival at Vard5, the Fram reached the open sea, with 
no more ob-stacles between her and a home port. No one had 
been ill or injured during the voyage and not a case of scurvy 
had occurred. Cheerfulness reigned, and the amusements with 
which the long, dark winters were beguiled were only disturbed 
now and then by a feeling of anxiety caused by the crunching 
and grinding of the masses of ice crowding against the ship’s 
sides. The electric light, Avith its Avindmill and accumulators^ 
Avas a great success. When the Avind failed, the men Avere ready 
and Avilling to take needed exercise by turning the ca[)stan, and 
thus supplying the deficiency. No land Avas seen above the 82° 
of latitude. During the Frauds voyage soundings from the north 
of the Ncav Siberian islands to north of Spitzbergcn slnnvcd the 
minimum dei)th to be 1,600 fathoms and maximum 2,000 fath- 
oms, Avhich upsets all theories as to a shalloAV Polar basin in the 
European Arctic ocean. One peculiar feature of this Polar sea 
is that the upper space of Avater to a dc|)th of about 100 fathoms 
is icc cold, Avhilo below it there is a stratum of Avater shoAviiig a 
half degree of Avamith (Celsius) aud reaehing to a depth of about 
