her. The form of the ship is for all practical
purposes the form of the block of ice in which she is frozen. This is
a matter of the first importance, for there is no record of a vessel
frozen into the polar pack having been disconnected from the ice,
and so rendered capable of rising under pressure as a separate body
detached from the ice block, even in the height of summer. In the event
of the destruction of the vessel, the boats--necessarily fully stored,
not only for the retreat, but for continuing the voyage--are to be
available. This is well in theory, but extremely difficult to arrange
for in practice. Preparation to abandon the vessel is the one thing
that gives us the most anxiety. To place boats, etc., on the ice,
packed ready for use, involves the danger of being separated from
them by a movement of the ice, or of losing them altogether should a
sudden opening occur. If we merely have everything handy for heaving
over the side, the emergency may be so sudden that we have not time
to save anything..."

As regards the assumed drift of the polar ice, Nares expressed himself
on the whole at variance with me. He insisted that the drift was
essentially determined by the prevailing winds:

"As to the probable direction of the drift, the Fram, starting from
near the mouth of the Lena River, may expect to meet the main pack
not farther north than about latitude 76 deg. 30'. I doubt her getting
farther north before she is beset, but taking an extreme case, and
giving her 60 miles more, she will then only be in the same latitude as
Cape Chelyuskin, 730 miles from the Pole, and about 600 miles from my
supposed limit of the effective homeward-carrying ocean current. After
a close study of all the information we possess, I think the wind
will be more likely to drift her towards the west than towards the
east. With an ice-encumbered sea north of her, and more open water or
newly made ice to the southward, the chances are small for a northerly
drift, at all events, at first, and afterwards I know of no natural
forces that will carry the vessel in any reasonable time much farther
from the Siberian coast than the Jeannette was carried, and during
the whole of this time, unless protected by newly discovered lands,
she will be to all intents and purposes immovably sealed up in the
pack, and exposed to its well-known dangers. There is no doubt that
there is an ocean connection across the area proposed to be explored."

In one