Blessing fishing for algæ
(From a Photograph)
“Yesterday evening the last cigar out of the old box! And now I have smoked the first out of the last box I have got. We were to have got so far by the time that box was finished; but are scarcely any farther advanced than when I began it, and goodness knows if we shall be that when this, too, has disappeared. But enough of that. Smoke away.
“Sunday, July 22d. The northwest wind did not come quite up to time; on Friday we had northeast instead, and during the night it gradually went round to N.N.E., and yesterday forenoon it blew due north. To-day it has ended in the west, the old well-known quarter, of which we have had more than enough. This evening the line[13] shows about N.W. to N., and it is strong, so we are moving south again.
Pressure-ridge on the port quarter of the “Fram” (July 1, 1894)
(From a Photograph)
“I pass the day at the microscope. I am now busied with the diatoms and algæ of all kinds that grow on the ice in the uppermost fresh stratum of the sea. These are undeniably most interesting things, a whole new world of organisms that are carried off by the ice from known shores across the unknown Polar Sea, there to awaken every summer and develop into life and bloom. Yes, it is very interesting work, but yet there is not that same burning interest as of old, although the scent of oil of cloves, Canada balsam, and wood-oil awakens many dear reminiscences of that quiet laboratory at home, and every morning as I come in here the microscope and glasses and colors on the table invite me to work. But though I work indefatigably day after day till late in the night, it is mostly duty work, and I am not sorry when it is finished, to go and lie for some few hours in my berth reading a novel and smoking a cigar. With what exultation would I not throw the whole aside, spring up, and lay hold of real life, fighting my way over ice and sea with sledges, boats, or kayaks! It is more than true that it is ‘easy to live a life of battle’; but here there is neither storm nor battle, and I thirst after them. I long to enlist titanic forces and fight my way forward—that would be living! But what pleasure is there in strength when there is nothing for it to do? Here we drift forward, and here we drift back, and now we have been two months on the same spot.
“Everything, however, is being got ready for a possible expedition, or for the contingency of its becoming necessary to abandon the ship. All the hand-sledges are lashed together, and the iron fittings carefully seen to. Six dog-sledges are also being made, and to-morrow we shall begin building kayaks ready for the men. They are easy to draw on hand-sledges in case of a retreat over the ice without the ship. For a beginning we are making kayaks to hold two men each. I intend to have them about 12 feet long, 3 feet wide, and 18 inches in depth. Six of these are to be made. They are to be covered with sealskin or sail-cloth, and to be decked all over, except for two holes—one for each man.
