, newly frozen ice, with older, uneven blocks breaking
through it. I seated myself on a snow hummock far away out; the dogs
crowded round to be patted. My eye wandered over the great snow plain,
endless and solitary--nothing but snow, snow everywhere.

"The observations to-day gave us an unpleasant surprise; we
are now down in 78 deg. 35' north latitude; but there is a simple
enough explanation of this when one thinks of all the northerly and
northwesterly wind we have had lately, with open water not far to the
south of us. As soon as everything is frozen we must go north again;
there can be no question of that; but none the less this state of
matters is unpleasant. I find some comfort in the fact that we have
also drifted a little east, so that at all events we have kept with
the wind and are not drifting down westward.

"Monday, October 9th. I was feverish both during last night and
to-day. Goodness knows what is the meaning of such nonsense. When
I was taking water samples in the morning I discovered that the
water-lifter suddenly stopped at the depth of a little less than 80
fathoms. It was really the bottom. So we have drifted south again to
the shallow water. We let the weight lie at the bottom for a little,
and saw by the line that for the moment we were drifting north. This
was some small comfort, anyhow.

"All at once in the afternoon, as we were sitting idly chattering,
a deafening noise began, and the whole ship shook. This was the first
ice-pressure. Every one rushed on deck to look. The Fram behaved
beautifully, as I had expected she would. On pushed the ice with
steady pressure, but down under us it had to go, and we were slowly
lifted up. These 'squeezings' continued off and on all the afternoon,
and were sometimes so strong that the Fram was lifted several feet;
but then the ice could no longer bear her, and she broke it below
her. Towards evening the whole slackened again, till we lay in a
good-sized piece of open water, and had hurriedly to moor her to our
old floe, or we should have drifted off. There seems to be a good deal
of movement in the ice here. Peter has just been telling us that he
hears the dull booming of strong pressures not far off.

"Tuesday, October 10th. The ice continues disturbed.

"Wednesday, October 11th. The bad news was brought this afternoon
that 'Job' is dead, torn in pieces by the other dogs. He was found
a good way from the ship, 'Old Suggen' lying watching the corpse,