r during the whole time of our drifting. We noticed them
especially the first autumn, while we were in the neighborhood of
the open sea north of Siberia, and the last year, when the Fram was
drawing near the open Atlantic Ocean; they were less noticeable while
we were in the polar basin. Pressure occurs here more irregularly,
and is mainly caused by the wind driving the ice. When one pictures to
one's self these enormous ice-masses, drifting in a certain direction,
suddenly meeting hinderances--for example, ice-masses drifting from
the opposite direction, owing to a change of wind in some more or
less distant quarter--it is easy to understand the tremendous pressure
that must result.

Such an ice conflict is undeniably a stupendous spectacle. One
feels one's self to be in the presence of titanic forces, and it
is easy to understand how timid souls may be overawed and feel as
if nothing could stand before it. For when the packing begins in
earnest it seems as though there could be no spot on the earth's
surface left unshaken. First you hear a sound like the thundering
rumbling of an earthquake far away on the great waste; then you hear
it in several places, always coming nearer and nearer. The silent
ice world re-echoes with thunders; nature's giants are awakening to
the battle. The ice cracks on every side of you, and begins to pile
itself up; and all of a sudden you too find yourself in the midst
of the struggle. There are howlings and thunderings round you; you
feel the ice trembling, and hear it rumbling under your feet; there
is no peace anywhere. In the semi-darkness you can see it piling and
tossing itself up into high ridges nearer and nearer you--floes 10,
12, 15 feet thick, broken, and flung on the top of each other as if
they were feather-weights. They are quite near you now, and you jump
away to save your life. But the ice splits in front of you, a black
gulf opens, and water streams up. You turn in another direction,
but there through the dark you can just see a new ridge of moving
ice-blocks coming towards you. You try another direction, but there
it is the same. All round there is thundering and roaring, as of some
enormous waterfall, with explosions like cannon salvoes. Still nearer
you it comes. The floe you are standing on gets smaller and smaller;
water pours over it; there can be no escape except by scrambling over
the rolling ice-blocks to get to the other side of the pack. But now
the disturbance b