essed through this by a large wind-sail on deck, and blows
straight on to the iron bowl, where the oil burns briskly with a
clear, white flame. Whoever lights the fire in the morning has only
to go on deck and see that the wind-sail is set to the wind, to open
the ventilator, to turn the cock so that the oil runs properly, and
then set it burning with a scrap of paper. It looks after itself, and
the water is boiling in twenty minutes or half an hour. One could not
have anything much easier than this, it seems to me. But of course in
our, as in other communities, it is difficult to introduce reforms;
everything new is looked upon with suspicion."

Somewhat later I write of the same apparatus: "We are now using the
galley again, with the coal-oil fire; the moving down took place the
day before yesterday, [63] and the fire was used yesterday. It works
capitally; a three-foot wind is enough to give a splendid draught. The
day before yesterday, when I was sitting with some of the others in
the saloon in the afternoon, I heard a dull report out in the galley,
and said at once that it sounded like an explosion. Presently Pettersen
[64] stuck a head in at the door as black as a sweep's, great lumps
of soot all over it, and said that the stove had exploded right
into his face; he was only going to look if it was burning rightly,
and the whole fiendish thing flew out at him. A stream of words not
unmingled with oaths flowed like peas out of a sack, while the rest
of us yelled with laughter. In the galley it was easy to see that
something had happened; the walls were covered with soot in lumps
and stripes pointing towards the fireplace. The explanation of the
accident was simple enough. The draught had been insufficient, and
a quantity of gas had formed which had not been able to burn until
air was let in by Pettersen opening the door.

"This is a good beginning. I told Pettersen in the evening that I
would do the cooking myself next day, when the real trial was to be
made. But he would not hear of such a thing; he said 'I was not to
think that he minded a trifle like that; I might trust to its being
all right'--and it was all right. From that day I heard nothing but
praise of the new apparatus, and it was used until the Fram was out
in the open sea again.

"Thursday, September 6th. 81 deg. 13.7' north latitude. Have I been married
five years to-day? Last year this was a day of victory--when the
ice-fetters burst at Taimur Isla