s. Faint
aurora borealis.

"Sunday, January 28th. Strange to say, there has been no pressure
since 12 o'clock last night; the ice seems perfectly quiet. The
pressure-ridge astern showed what violent packing yesterday's was;
in one place its height was 18 or 19 feet above the surface of the
water; floe-ice 8 feet thick was broken, pressed up in square blocks,
and crushed to pieces. At one point a huge monolith of such floe-ice
rose high into the air. Beyond this pressure-wall there was no great
disturbance to be detected. There had been a little packing here and
there, and the floe to port had four or five large cracks across it,
which no doubt accounted for the explosions I heard last night. The
ice to starboard was also cracked in several places. The pressure
had evidently come from the north or N.N.E. The ridge behind us is
one of the highest I have seen yet. I believe that if the Fram had
been lying there she would have been lifted right out of the water. I
walked for some distance in a northeasterly direction, but saw no
signs of pressure there.

"Another Sunday. It is wonderful that the time can pass so quickly
as it does. For one thing we are in better spirits, knowing that we
are drifting steadily north. A rough estimate of to-day's observation
gives 79 deg. 50' north latitude. That is not much since Monday; but then
yesterday and to-day there has been almost no wind at all, and the
other days it has been very light--only once or twice with as much
as 9 feet velocity, the rest of the time 3 and 6.

"A remarkable event happened yesterday afternoon: I got Munthe's
picture of the 'Three Princesses' fastened firmly on the wall. It is
a thing that we have been going to do ever since we left Christiania,
but we have never been able to summon up energy for such a heavy
undertaking--it meant knocking in four nails--and the picture has
amused itself by constantly falling and guillotining whoever happened
to be sitting on the sofa below it.

"Tuesday, January 30th. 79 deg. 49' north latitude, 134 deg. 57' east
longitude, is the tale told by this afternoon's observations, while
by Sunday afternoon's we were in 79 deg. 50' north latitude, and 133 deg. 23'
east longitude. This fall-off to the southeast again was not more than
I had expected, as it has been almost calm since Sunday. I explain the
thing to myself thus: When the ice has been set adrift in a certain
direction by the wind blowing that way for some time it gra