split on Saturday, and has broken up more each
day. The channels have been of a good size, and the movement becomes
more and more perceptible. Yesterday there was slight pressure, and
we noticed it again this morning about 5 o'clock. To-day the ice by
the ship has opened, and we are almost afloat.

"Here I sit in the still winter night on the drifting ice-floe,
and see only stars above me. Far off I see the threads of life
twisting themselves into the intricate web which stretches unbroken
from life's sweet morning dawn to the eternal death-stillness of the
ice. Thought follows thought--you pick the whole to pieces, and it
seems so small--but high above all towers one form.... Why did you
take this voyage?... Could I do otherwise? Can the river arrest its
course and run up hill? My plan has come to nothing. That palace of
theory which I reared, in pride and self-confidence, high above all
silly objections has fallen like a house of cards at the first breath
of wind. Build up the most ingenious theories and you may be sure
of one thing--that fact will defy them all. Was I so very sure? Yes,
at times; but that was self-deception, intoxication. A secret doubt
lurked behind all the reasoning. It seemed as though the longer I
defended my theory, the nearer I came to doubting it. But no, there
is no getting over the evidence of that Siberian drift-wood.

"But if, after all, we are on the wrong track, what then? Only
disappointed human hopes, nothing more. And even if we perish, what
will it matter in the endless cycles of eternity?

"Thursday, November 9th. I took temperatures and sea-water samples
to-day every 10 yards from the surface to the bottom, The depth was 9
1/2 fathoms. An extraordinarily even temperature of 30 deg. Fahr. (-1.5
C.) through all the layers. I have noticed the same thing before as
far south as this. So it is only polar water here? There is not much
pressure; an inclination to it this morning, and a little at 8 o'clock
this evening; also a few squeezes later, when we were playing cards.

"Friday, November 10th. This morning made despairing examinations of
yesterday's water samples with Thornoee's electric apparatus. There
must be absolute stillness on board when this is going on. The men are
all terrified, slip about on tiptoe, and talk in the lowest possible
whispers. But presently one begins to hammer at something on deck, and
another to file in the engine-room, when the chief's commanding voice