e phenomenon lost something of its brilliancy, dispersing
little by little, leaving merely a faint indication of an aurora in
the southern sky. On coming up again on deck later in the evening,
I found nearly the whole of the aurora collected in the southern
half of the sky. A low arch, 5 deg. in height, could be seen far down in
the south over the dark segment of the horizon. Between this and the
zenith were four other vague, wavy arches, the topmost of which passed
right across it; here and there vivid streamers shot flaming upward,
especially from the undermost arch in the south. No arch was to be
seen in the northern part of the sky, only streamers every here and
there. To-night, as usual, there are traces of aurora to be seen over
the whole sky; light mists or streamers are often plainly visible,
and the sky seems to be constantly covered with a luminous veil,
[70] in which every here and there are dark holes.

"There is scarcely any night, or rather I may safely say there is
no night, on which no trace of aurora can be discerned as soon as
the sky becomes clear, or even when there is simply a rift in the
clouds large enough for it to be seen; and as a rule we have strong
light phenomena dancing in ceaseless unrest over the firmament. They
mainly appear, however, in the southern part of the sky.

"Friday, October 19th. A fresh breeze from E.S.E. Drifting northward
at a good pace. Soon we shall probably have passed the long-looked-for
82 deg., and that will not be far from 82 deg. 27', when the Fram will be
the vessel that will have penetrated farthest to the north on this
globe. But the barometer is falling; the wind probably will not remain
in that quarter long, but will shift round to the west. I only hope
for this once the barometer may prove a false prophet. I have become
rather sanguine; things have been going pretty well for so long;
and October, a month which last year's experience had made me dread,
has been a month of marked advance, if only it doesn't end badly.

"The wind to-day, however, was to cost a life. The mill, which had
been repaired after the mishap to the cog-wheel the other day, was set
going again. In the afternoon a couple of the puppies began fighting
over a bone, when one of them fell underneath one of the cog-wheels on
the axle of the mill, and was dragged in between it and the deck. Its
poor little body nearly made the whole thing come to a standstill;
and, unfortunately, no one was on