The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-11-21
NANsEN's OWN STORY.

How and Why He Left the Tram and
 Pushed On--The Ice Near the Pole
 Peculiarities of the Polar Sea-How the Ice-Drift Cut Down Progress
 Hardships of the Return Journey.
 Nansen found mo thoroughfare" on September 20 in 77 degrees A minutes. He therefore made fast to an iceberg, and was soon frozen immovably fast. He continues thus:
 During the first few days we drifted in northerly direction so that by Sep tember 29 we had passed the seventy ninth parallel of latitude. Hope was bright, but before long it was darkened 1 by a north wind, which continued | throughout the autumn, and carried us in a southeasterly direction. That was a dreary time; it seemed as if every thing were going against us On No-t vember 8 we had come right down as far as v degrees 43 minutes north lat itude, and 13S degrees 8 minutes east longitude; but then at last we got southerly and southeasterly winds and began in earnest to drift in a northerly and northwesterly direction, just as had been presupposed in the plan of the expedition As early as October the ice pressures began to be tremen- dous, and continued throughout the 1 autumn and winter We soon discov- cred that 1t was principally due to the | tidal current, and that the ice periodi- cally parted and packed together again l twice in the twenty-four hours. The pressure was, therefore, greatest at the spring tides, when it would often lift the vessel several feet, only to let 1t drop back again into it's former posi- ton as soon as the ice again opened. | In the case of any other vessel this pressure would have been utterly fatal; | but the Tram surpassed our boldest expectations and was superior to all pressure. The ice piled itself up, and crashed against her sides with a noise | like the crack of doom, but in vain. l There was not sound of the yielding 1 of timbers or wood. The noise of the ice crashing against her sides often rose to such pitch that we could not l hear each other speak as we sat in the l saloon. It was particularly awkward | for the card players, who thus could not hear each others declarations. At l first, as long as the crew were unac- l customed to this they found the scene l so interesting that they remained on deck to watch it; but they soon tired of l 1t, and no longer went up. however bad the pressure was We felt as safe as l in fortress, and the Tram was com fortable warm nest, where nothing was felt of the severity of the polar 1 winter.
 "The temperature fell rapidly. and continued evenly low throughout the winter. During many weeks the quicksilver was frozen. The lowest temperature was 63 degrees below zero. In spite of this, and although with this temperature there was often wind, we felt quite comfortable dur ing our open-air excursions, in our good woolen clothing, with covering 1 of wind-proof material. The Tram was so well protected against the cold l that even in these low temperatures we had no fire in the saloon until the new year
 Tn the sea near the Siberian coast, and northward to seventy mine degrees north latitude, found only very in- considerable depths-less than ninety fathoms. A little south of this lati- tude, however, the depth increased with astonishing rapidity, and l found the sea north of that to be between sixteen and nineteen hundred fathoms deep. It therefore seems to me as If the entire polar basin should be con- | sidered as a continuation of the deep channel which runs northward from the North Atlantic ocean between Spitzbergen and Greenland. This dis covery of a deep polar basin over throws, however, all earlier theories based upon shallow polar sea. In the 1 numerous bottom samples brought to the surface in our surroundings, l al ways found a remarkGble absence of organic life fact which will probably lead to some alteration of our views with regard to bottom deposits. The temperature and salinity of the sea also prove to be very different from the suppositions of most scientific authori- ties I found, not far below the cold ice water covering the surface of the polar sea- a deep layer of warmer and salter water, originating probably in the Gulf stream, it's temperature being as much as one degree above freezing | pDllll. IoSIoW tIllS lhueCu, tiS Wdtcl was somewhat colder, but yet consid- erably warmer than is generally sup posed.
 '"The speed at which we drifted was continually changing, and of course, in consequence, was not a straight line. Sometimes We drifted forward, but at others We went back again, and were our course to be marked on map as it actually was, it would be such a con fusion of loops and knots that no one would be able to make anything out of it. As We expected, We drifted most in a northwesterly direction in the winter and spring, while northerly winds stopped us in the summer. By June IS we had in this way reached S2 degrees fifty-two minutes north latitude. Not until October 21 did We reach S2 de grees north latitude, in IA degrees minutes east longitude. On the eyen-